New Grump of the Day

[Cassie]

A grump from me. Having finally found someone to tackle the porch roof properly after contacting 14 different people (some downright declined, some came out but didn’t quote , some said too busy, some said they’d come but didn’t, absolutely no response from some. You get the picture) it turns out his business email has been hijacked by scammers. I entered into an email trail about deposits, start date etc but became very suspicious when they asked for payment in euros, urgently because of “tax problems “ Luckily, I checked it with him in person and didn’t send any cash. He’d sent an email with a warning preceding this, but said that other customers had been caught out and lost money! As if things weren’t hard enough on both sides!! The scammers helpfully sent their bank details, which I’ve duly reported to fraud action, so I hope they catch the bastards. Grr.

 

[paulc]

If it were me it wouldn't be by the scruff of the neck either - I''d want something more tender in my gnarly grip!

Have been looking at the parts diagrams and spares list. There is no "grommet" shown or listed around the thermostat well. A fictitious part and a flimsy excuse for issuing an at risk notice.
Not having him back to do anything as he'll probably tell me I need new radiators & controls to go with a magic fairy-dust boiler. Radiators are only a couple of years old, and the smart(er) control will run rings around a Hive or Nest thermostat.

 

[Cubist]

Have been looking at the parts diagrams and spares list. There is no "grommet" shown or listed around the thermostat well. A fictitious part and a flimsy excuse for issuing an at risk notice.
Not having him back to do anything as he'll probably tell me I need new radiators & controls to go with a magic fairy-dust boiler. Radiators are only a couple of years old, and the smart(er) control will run rings around a Hive or Nest thermostat.

I was wondering if you could measure the inner and outer diameters of the required grommet and purchase one from someone like RS Components. If that's all that's missing/wrong with the boiler then it may just be 10 minutes work and cost a tenner for a bag of 100 suitably sized new grommets to get the risk notice rescinded.

 

[RBailey]

Been waiting on a local gas engineer to come and service my vintage Baxi back boiler. Takes one look at it and says "Oooo, you are missing a grommet round this. Part obsolete, so going to have to slap an at risk notice on it". Without even checking that the part is available, he then proceeds to cut the gas pipe, cap it, and remove a valve.
Yes, the part is obsolete, but a two minute search turned up several sources of the £4 part. Now going to cost me best part of £4,000 to replace the flippin' boiler, just as the weather is starting to turn cold.

Oh dear, sorry.

Learnt recently that when I was a baby we hade something similar, however, while the engineer went to his van my mum got his tools, put them on the step, locked the door and told him to "get off" her property.
Don't mess with the Mother bear instinct!
Problem was then fixed sensibly without leaving the house without heating.

Slapping a prohibition notice is one thing but cutting the pipe is a over reaction before even checking. I did hear that the gas engineers were on targets for boiler condemnations, if true is very unethical.

 

[Lacan07]

Slapping a prohibition notice is one thing but cutting the pipe is a over reaction before even checking. I did hear that the gas engineers were on targets for boiler condemnations, if true is very unethical.

Yeah, this smacks of the eco overdrive to ditch petrol / diesel cars.

They think poor people are going to spend thousands on a shiny new heat pump that will never pay it's way in their lifetime, currently has a myriad of installations and service issues, and most likely be superseded by a newer technology somewhere down the line.

 

[paulc]

Yeah, this smacks of the eco overdrive to ditch petrol / diesel cars.

They think poor people are going to spend thousands on a shiny new heat pump that will never pay it's way in their lifetime, currently has a myriad of installations and service issues, and most likely be superseded by a newer technology somewhere down the line.

Heat pumps are all well and good in a modern building with high levels of insulation. For those of us in draughty old houses that are difficult to insulate (be it technical, practical, or financial reasons), heat pumps really don't stack up. In the depths of winter when one really needs heat, air source heat pumps would be hard pushed to achieve a COP of 2 (so 1KW of electricity in, 2KW heat out). Ground source heat pumps return a higher efficiency, but I don't have the space for a big enough collector, and getting a drilling rig in for a 300m borehole is next to impossible. Oh, and don't have the £30K going spare for that sort of project.
Will continue insulating where I can and hope I have enough logs to last the winter.

 

[Cubist]

Yeah, this smacks of the eco overdrive to ditch petrol / diesel cars.

They think poor people are going to spend thousands on a shiny new heat pump that will never pay it's way in their lifetime, currently has a myriad of installations and service issues, and most likely be superseded by a newer technology somewhere down the line.

Indeed. The manifestos of so many of the politicos seems to be 'Lets put shedloads of public money into the most expensive technical strategies with the least direct benefit to the consumers and the lowest possible payback to the public purse'.

I despair of the mindless, short sighted, short term-ist, and down-right exploitative thinking of so many of these so called leaders.

 

[Feltwell]

I vaguely wondered about a heat pump, if it was possible to use the disused borehole we have at the end of our garden as part of a system. I quickly dismissed it as impractical though - this old place could never be insulated well enough without destroying all it's character in the process.

When we bought this house we knew the gas boiler was getting old, we thought it would last longer than 3 days before going terminally wrong though! Just bad luck. The gas engineer I grabbed at short notice didn't turn out to be the best, the new boiler he put in wasn't really big enough for the house and it wasn't fitted particularly well, though it was cheap.

It survived for 13 years, but since we splashed out on a new boiler again - and this time did it properly, went for a quality system and changed how the hot water worked - the house has been a lot more comfortable in the cold weather, with no noticeable extra gas use.

 

[Lacan07]

Indeed. The manifestos of so many of the politicos seems to be 'Lets put shedloads of public money into the most expensive technical strategies with the least direct benefit to the consumers and the lowest possible payback to the public purse'.

I despair of the mindless, short sighted, short term-ist, and down-right exploitative thinking of so many of these so called leaders.

I wouldn't mind a push toward Net Zero if the technology was firmly in place and poor communities weren't being sacrificed at the alter of virtue signalling.

My downstairs would probably benefit from an air to air heat system (air con) as its quite small and open plan. I could buy the unit, run the ducting, and hire someone to commission it. If it was a reasonable expense I'd do it, or would I use the money to install a wood burner instead, I don't know?

One thing I've learnt from the Green Building Forum is servicing can be an issue, how many times the things go wrong and whether theres anyone available locally to come and fix it.

 

[Cubist]

I wouldn't mind a push toward Net Zero if the technology was firmly in place and poor communities weren't being sacrificed at the alter of virtue signalling.

My downstairs would probably benefit from an air to air heat system (air con) as its quite small and open plan. I could buy the unit, run the ducting, and hire someone to commission it. If it was a reasonable expense I'd do it, or would I use the money to install a wood burner instead, I don't know?

One thing I've learnt from the Green Building Forum is servicing can be an issue, how many times the things go wrong and whether theres anyone available locally to come and fix it.

I am very firmly of the view that Net Zero should not be an aspiration - it should be a mandate in every walk of life. But, it must begin with government, national and local, and consist of cursive, meaningful and sensible strategies to meet 'all' our needs. Its a poor example I accept, but why, in a nation that repeatedly makes promises of vast new housing commitments, is there no corresponding commitment to ensure that every one of those homes 'produces' as much solar power say as it can use in an average year. Why is some grant aid denied to some home owners because their houses are not, and cannot be made, as heat efficient as others?

Sorry, I'm starting to rant..... but I do get so angry with with the powers that be.

 

[RBailey]

I often argue that our houses are already much more carbon neutral than the new-builds or even seventies horror.

They were built with locally sourced, naturally occurring materials with minimal firing, have lasted hundreds of years, and for most of that they were 100% carbon neutral of wood fires, a very low foot print.

Compare that to a modern house with all bricks on a concrete slab which all requires significant heat, hydrocarbon plastic everywhere and nothing local (especially the transport miles for the fittings made in china) and then all for a short lifespan till it falls apart.

 

[Cubist]

May I add a slightly different, but nevertheless germane to the current discussion, grump?

I have long held the view that many of the ills we face in the world; economic, security, climate, etc., etc. can be traced and attributed to 'short term-ism' inherent in the mindsets of the so called leaders and, just as damningly, the populace at large. Consequently this grumble tends to be a daily background occurrence for me.

 

[Feltwell]

A new grump today. I spent about 3 hours today digging out a drain in my front garden, a job that I have been successfully putting off for a very long time. Said drain takes rainwater away from part of my roof, and it's full of roots, due to it starting under a hedge and running past 2 trees. I had a camera survey done a couple of years ago and then they stuck a root cutting jetting head down it - alas, whilst it brought a lot of bits of root out, the final bit was too much for it so the only solution involves a mattock and a shovel. Water still drains away down it but paranoia kept telling me it might just be washing out of a break causing a big cavity under the foundations - today has at least shown that is not the case.

The drain is not the grump. The grump is that I am getting older, and my body is taking increasing delight in reminding me of this. This started with an eye test this morning, which revealed that I am on the cusp of legality when it comes to driving without glasses, so it's new glasses for driving on order for me. The major grump though is that this evening, several hours and a nice hot shower after digging big holes under a hedge through lots of tough roots, some muscle beneath my collarbone has decided to hurt like hell in protest at being used for manual labour.

This is becoming a regular occurrence - do something strenuous, body protests by putting part of itself rather painfully on strike for a day or two. And I still haven't finished the job. If I cut this bit open and can't clear all the roots, it's a mini-digger hire job, I'm damned if I'm digging this out right across the garden! The drain is a lot deeper than I thought for starters.

 

[paulc]

The grump is that I am getting older, and my body is taking increasing delight in reminding me of this.

Know how you feel. I have been on "light duties" at work for a couple of years, and slipped a disc a week before I was due to lay a block paved drive last spring - Fortunately had a mini digger and driver booked to do all the heavy grunt work, so I just hobbled around supervising.. Back pains are still interrupting daily life and pain killers only go so far in reducing the symptoms.

This "getting old" lark sucks.

 

[Cubist]

The grump is that I am getting older, and my body is taking increasing delight in reminding me of this.

Tell me about it. I was taught/encouraged to push through the pain. True enough It would often diminish just as my advisors/teachers said.

What they didn't tell me is that I would have to put that effort in every day and that if I didn't I would have to fight that same battle every other day.

Like it or no, our conflict with entropy has only one outcome but I for one choose to meet it head on - same outcome either way after all but until then I'll have the satisfaction of saying 'bugger it'.

 

[Feltwell]

Grump of the Day? I've got Cheer of the Day! Well, after I complained about my eldest son on another thread......

Well, if it's any consolation Phil, the eldest of my sons - age 16, highly intelligent but a bit lacking in tact, even by 16 year old boy standards - was asking me what I was doing when I was digging a big hole to repair a drain in my garden yesterday. I told him, which got a reaction of "Oooo, that's not a fun job, especially at your age." I'm 50 - Ouch!

He redeemed himself slightly by offering to help! Else I reckon that hole could have just accommodated a skinny 6' teenage boy.......

Main problem is though, the little bugger was right!

Today he was my saviour!

I set about cutting into the drain you can see above. Alas, a schoolboy error was about to occur. *Always* - Always Always Always - block up whatever it is you don't want things to fall down, otherwise they will be magnetically attracted to it. It takes a second. Scrunch a bit of plastic sheet up into a ball and stick it in the top of that drain, that drain that is diving off vertically down into the very bowels of the earth (well, under the garden a bit at least!) - otherwise......

You will knock a cut piece of the drain you are working on down into that pipe. You try to reach it, but (in my case) my chunky old arms won't go very far down a 4" drain.

Cue the need for a lanky 16 year old with not much muscle in his arms yet! Bless him, I dragged him away from his college work, asked him to put old clothes and shoes on, he came outside and without a word of complaint knelt in the wet squelchy mud, stuck his arm down the drain and pulled the piece of cut pipe out, thereby saving his Dad from a world of pain!

This then became the rarest of jobs - the ones that are much easier than you think they'll be. The root blockage was all up near the gulley, caused by bad fitting of the drain originally, leaving a gap at the joint to the gully that allowed roots in - do you think the builders will take a complaint after 125 years?

Rodded the drain through and all was clear, so a bit of new plastic drain fixed in place with a couple of adapters and all was fixed, hurrah! The original gully survived as well, so it's an invisible underground repair now

 

[Cubist]

Always a blessing when an off-spring comes to one aid but....... what about the pay-back?

Will dad be so understanding, helpful and benevolent when said son comes along and asks; "Dad can you -

• .... help me with my <insert subject> homework?
• .... help me buy that new car I want or start the one I bought without consulting you?
• .... take mum out somewhere so I can bring my girlfriend round?

 

[Feltwell]

Oh, Dad's pretty understanding, son gets a good deal. Homework queries tend to go to his big sister who did the same A levels just 2 years ago! Very handy. I did them to but that was 34 years ago - a lot of new things have come along and pushed old things out of my brain in that time........

 

[Cubist]

Yes, I thought I was being understanding and helpful too. That is, until my girl's negotiation skills, mostly learned by haggling with me, proved superior to mine. Nowadays its not worth bothering adopting a contra position - she's already worked out what I'll say, the ploys I'll use and has a counter stratagem up her sleeve for anything I may contemplate and none of which include the big-eyed, pouting "Daaaad" entreaties.

Maybe that should have been my Grump of the Day - every day since she was 5 or 6 years old.

 

[LadyArowana]

A very neat job there Felt well and congrats to son for helping out.