Warm

Not much more to say really. GrDF finally arrived as promised and our fab heating engineer had everything ready for the moment it was connected!

This was on Thursday evening - we've been too busy running taps since to post anything.

The new system works really well and we're pretty happy.

When one flush just isn't enough...

The big water tank is now in place, the excitingly named Rotex Sanicube, although I can't help but point out that it's not really a cube.

In other news, a well-dressed engineer type was spotted in the hole in the road doing something this morning, so hopefully we're now almost connected - though we need to wait for yet another man to connect the two pipes together that are inside the gas box (with a meter).

It seems that every joint in the pipe is handled by a different company, with another one involved to dig up the road! It's close though...

Our poor heating engineers are finishing off down in the heating room, which, thanks to our dodgy plumbing, isn't always the nicest place to be (careful observers will spot the main waste pipe exiting the house under the boiler). This leads to a terrible dilemma .. how many flushes do you need to get your poops definitively out of the house? It's a tricky one, particularly given that everyone seem to have the gastro.. I mean, is one enough? Two? Or maybe two positions the poop right in the wrong place... and flushing six or seven times just makes it look suspicious.

Luckily there are no photos this time...

Hole in the road

I'm now very happy to say that we have a large trench in the road, pointing in the direction of the gas main! Everyone arrived this morning and they've been digging all morning - it looks almost done.

There are traffic lights and everything. This morning, as the man was setting up the traffic lights on a completely clear road, some poor guy in a car obediently stopped at the lights and stayed there for about 5 minutes until he realised that the road ahead was completely clear and the lights weren't going to change.

There are big diggers and dumper trucks too. It's amazing how much rubble comes out of a little trench.

Meanwhile the heating system proceeds in the cave - the water tank is going in just now to get all connected up.

Out with the old...

Our heating man arrived yesterday to rip out the old boiler and put in the new shiny one. We're doing this in advance of the gas arriving since it's a definitely definitive date this time.

After much ripping and sawing and cutting, and a poop-filled cold-water interruption, the shiny new boiler is in, although the new water tank is not yet there.

The new boiler is a 40 kW Rotex A1 gas monster. It looks better without the insulation (kinda skeletal), but I suppose it needs it's coat for the winter.

In other news, a man arrived in a bright yellow GrDF van insisting that he wasn't from GrDF, but anyway dropped off some road signs promising "on attaque demain". And as I type this, another man has appeared with more signs and looks like he's about to close the road!

Our heating man has also appeared and has dropped off a large water tank (and has rushed off again).

Spot the difference

Gas box carefully positioned on the wall

There's been an exciting new development in the ni-heating-ni-hot-water situation here at twentyfourandthedoor:

The gas box has moved!

Yes, an engineer from the gas company arrived unannounced and re-drilled the holes, moving the box a few centimeters to the right, and then went away. It now lines up much better with the marked lines and generally looks more aesthetically pleasing.

It still has no gas connected to it, but we take comfort with the knowledge that when the gas does arrive, it will arrive in the right place. Rumour has it that this may happen on the 18th of this month, so watch this space...

Gas box carefully positioned on the wall

Ooh La La!

While I was discussing our heating/hot water (or rather lack of it) with our vet this morning, he asked who was installing our new boiler.  When I told him, his response was, "Ooh-la-la!" accompanied by the French hand shaking thing that always goes with ooh-la-la.  Turns out it was a good ooh-la-la.  The poor vet is also without heating, but I think his job is not considered big enough for our mutual chauffagiste to take on.  Ours is, quite frankly, huge...and scheduled for the 18th.  Not that I'm counting the hours or anything...

Tin bath time

Ahhh... filling the the old tin bath from the kettle - I remember it so well from reading about someone else's childhood.

These tin baths aren't as solid as they used to be, and pinker certainly - this one was rescued from the garden.

Owing to our lack of hot water pressure, it's currently bathing the children and sometimes us too (though it is a bit small). Certainly better than a cold shower!

Meanwhile we all have the flu, which may or may not be related to the cold showers.

No pressure on the heating

In an unrelated problem, it looks like we'll have enough fuel to get through the next few days - not because we've got more fuel, but because limescale in the tank has reached such critical proportions that it's blocked something - the hot water pressure is now rather low.

There is plenty of hot water it seems but it's just not moving very fast. The morning shower is now a little bracing since the mixer tap evidently hasn't noticed that it shouldn't be dumping the usual quantity of cold water into the mix. The bath still works, though it takes 30 minutes to fill.

We could get everything serviced and all the pipes flushed, but since we're planning to rip it out all in the next week or so, we've decided to live with it...

Nice Box

A little unexpectedly (since we thought everything had been cancelled), a man arrived today and started to drill big holes in the wall outside our garden, and plonked a gas box in the appointed space.

We have a pipe on the other side of the wall that our heating engineer can connect up, though we're still waiting for GrDF to dig the trench for the pipe that will actually connect the gas supply to the box. I'm not sure this is all being done in the usual order, but it's good to see some more progress!

Meanwhile, our heating engineer is contacting some people who should hopefully be able to get us an emergency supply of fuel (and not 500 litres of it) - so we can start giving the kids warm baths again!

Getting the thermals ready

Today, GrDF had planned to arrive and dig up our road to connect us to the gas supply. Unfortunately, something has gone horribly wrong with the permissions for this (all the various parties involved are each sure they held up their end), so they phoned yesterday to say that they couldn't go ahead - it could be another few weeks before they obtain the necessary permissions.

Looking at the dial to the right, we're running a little low on fuel for hot water and heating (it was perfectly planned), so I may have to get some more... which is a little inconvenient, since it comes in minimum 500 litre deliveries, and even if the weather was frozen, I'd doubt we'd be able to use that much in the few weeks we have left on fuel.

Maybe I can tap some fuel from somebody else with a long siphon tube and a bucket...

Work starting then stopping on the new heating

It was all arranged - GrDF would come and dig up the road to install the gas. Our heating engineer would come and dig the trench in our garden, and then link it all up, and then start the work in the boiler room to replace the boiler.

Big diggers in the garden

As you can see, our heating engineer arrived and dug the trench (there was much excitement about the big diggers in the garden), but sadly the general strike in France meant that GrDF didn't turn up at all (no one was even around to tell us that they weren't turning up).

I'm posting this a little late, so I already know the next part of the story, but I won't spoil it for you... as far as the story goes, we now have a new date all arranged with GrDF quite soon and will have our new system all in place before the end of the month.

The Heating System

To the right is a picture of our rather sad heating system. Don't get me wrong - it sort of does the business - it gets the house hot and heats the water, but it's not the easiest to control (it gets the downstairs really hot and the upstairs not really hot at all), it's not very efficient (compared to modern condensing boilers) and it uses domestic fuel (or "mazout" as its called here).

It also only has the capacity to heat about half of what we need - currently we only have radiators in half of the house - which is the half that we're living in just now. The downstairs has an underfloor heating system powered by the same system - and I do mean the same system - there is no evident separation of the radiators from the underfloor system as you'd normally expect.

The inefficient combustion and the big oldish tank can make the garden smell a bit when the system is running full blast. We decided before we bought the house to change it for something better. After rejecting the favourite option of deep ground-source (we'd need two of them to heat the old house we have), we settled on the boring option of gas. As you can see, the wall that was tastefully hiding the tank has been removed (by yours truly), and we're now waiting for the gas company (GrDF) to connect us up.