In hot water | Friday, December 29, 2006 |
Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by how things turn out. Yesterday while working from home, Gillian called from work to say they'd had a power cut and could I get the number for the power company. While looking for it, I noticed that the microwave had gone off.
This happens periodically - I suspect that the circuit for the kitchen is a little oversubscribed but usually it's only when the dishwasher, extractor and electric fry pan are all on at the same time. Stranger still was that the kitchen circuit breaker hadn't tripped but the RCD had. After resetting, all the gadgets came back to life.
Skip forward to this morning and we've no hot water which is handy given that we have guest for the next few nights before heading down the coast for Michele's 40th. I'd thought last night that it was a bit cool (after coming in from a swim) but didn't really think anything of it. Just before the break we had a note from the lettings agent giving contact numbers for the break and after ringing both of the plumbers, I spoke to a chap.
Given that this was about 08:45, he was waiting at the house when I got there from work at about 09:10, got his bag out, rattled around for a while and determined that we needed a new cylinder. It had been leaking a little and water had gotten into the electronics at the bottom which is probably what caused the RCD to trip out yesterday.
A phone call, a quick disappearance and he was back with a new tank and had it installed by 11:30. It's marginally larger than the previous model due to more stringent regulations regarding insulation so the dryer won't fit back on the wall in the original spot. That will have to be attended to in the new year but shouldn't be a problem (unless it vibrates off the top of the washer). Most of the supplying pipe work also had to be relaid due to the change in size.
3 hours from the first phone call to a complete new hot water tank, seems to be me to be pretty good going.
