Happy New Year

Possibly the least exciting picture of the new year is the foam lagging that I've lovingly cut and shaped and tied to our bare pipes in the new boiler room.

Look at that craftsmanship... you don't see that any more (tm).

On the plus side, I've had to turn the water down since I added it, so it must be doing something good. Makes me feel all ecological...

However, for the majority of folks that aren't into rubberised insulating foam, here's a much nicer New Year's picture of one of our kittens, Rosie.

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.

What we've all been waiting for...

This 6-and-a-half month length of pipe is what we've been waiting for. Our heating engineer is just connecting our pipe to the box, and hopefully someone will arrive sometime soon to add the meter. Ooohhhh, it's like Pipemania out there (for those that a old enough to remember).

I guess someone will arrive sometime later to fill in the road, but somehow, I don't really care.

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.

Anyone?

All our men have left.

But there are more road-signs, barriers, a big road-surface chopper(*), a pneumatic drill and a 500-litre water tank waiting.

We remain hopeful.


(*) and I thought my angle-grinder was big.

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...

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!