When good home maintenance jobs go bad...

Well... not bad as such, but they could go smoother at times.

Had a plumber & a gasfitter around the other day, to install a new continuous gas fired hot water system. This is to replace the really ancient hot water cyllinder that is up in the roof (effectively, 3 storeys up). That old cyllinder worked. Kind of. But to get hot water in the kitchen we had to start running it about 5 minutes (no exaggeration) before we needed it to allow the water to get down to the kitchen. Also, the old cyllinder, or pipes attached to it, were known to leak on occasion.

In fact, there are so many old (possibly) disused water & gas pipes under our house, that's a project in itself. I already had the supply to the 1930s copper in the basement disconnected - because it dripped, and coppers don't have plug holes to drain them...

SO these guys were in to check the gas piping, disconnect & drain the old cyllinder & install a fancy new system.

First call from them came 5 minutes after I left them to it. "Your existing gas supply is inadequate for what you have planned."

Excellent. There was a solution though - and that was to run a very ugly looking, bright yellow, temporary pipe from the gas metre at the front gate, to the house. At an extra cost of $400 or so. But actually, I was expecting to have to replace it, I had believed that the existing pipe was a rusty old galvanised one that possibly leaked. The gas fitter, when he rang said there was good news & bad. The good was that there was a bright yellow, new pipe running through the rusty one. The bad was the aforementioned news that it was inadequate for the supply needed. (Reminder to myself: I still need to call the gas supplier to tell them we need the gas pressure ramped up in anticipation of impending installation of new gas heating, and the gas metre moved as a car deck is about to be built on top of it).

Fortunately, I had unearthed the gas pipe in the weekend, while digging a trench that will be needed for when we have to run our power supply underground - when the next big project takes place (soon), which is the cardeck.

Then, when they'd connected the new pipe up and installed the new water system, I came home at about 5.30pm to find them still there, trying to ascertain where a major leak was. I left for my walk with Wilma & at no stage did anyone mention the possibility that we might be without hot water, and I took that as a good sign...

And lo! We had hot water when I came home. The cloud in this silver lining was that in order to staunch the identified leak, they'd had to disconnect the only heater we have in our house. But at least the water is warm.

And pressure!... the kitchen is now fantastic! It takes 5 seconds, not minutes now to warm up. The bathroom? Well... I turned on the shower & inadvertently started a high pressure blast across the bath onto the wall & my pile of clothes on the ground... and my towel. We're going to need that turned down a bit. But have managed to direct the nozzle in a direction that minimises the drenching of the room. And after you've been in the shower for 30 seconds or so, the pain gets bearable. I suppose it's good for circulation.

We presume that the possibility that the water pressure will blow our existing taps & fittings across the room exists only in our imaginations.

This weekend, I'll be continuing to dig my trench, ever so slowly uphill, towards the front gate.

In about 3 weeks time, we should have two new, very attractive gas fires installed & all our heating woes will be a thing of the past.

I suppose everyone does this sort of thing just as Winter strikes...