A Boiler Story - I Know, Thrilling Stuff!

 One of the problems with writing a Much Malarkey Manor Christmas Story every year - aside from the panic, the sense of impending doom and the inevitable chaos - is that you don’t get to hear all the exciting stuff that happens chez moi during December. I sometimes think, well, THAT incident would have made a good blog post, but the incident becomes wasted material because I am constrained by the episodic nature of the story and I am pretty certain that you, dear Reader(s) would not want that flow to be interrupted by my latest supermarket rage incident. 

One such incident that DID happen this December was that the oil boiler packed up. In the cold snap, of course, because why be difficult when, with a little effort, you can be bloody impossible? 

I was sitting in the living room one afternoon, probably reading, and I thought, it’s jolly chilly in here - why hasn’t the heating come on? The thermostat said the heating was on. The app for the thermostat said the heating was on. The radiators, on the other hand, said the heating was definitely NOT on, which is why you should never believe what digital technology says and always deal with cold facts, which in this case, were very cold. 

I went into the laundry and stared at the boiler, and utilised my limited repertoire of boiler knowledge to try and make the boiler work, but it did not. So I called my brother who is also the heating engineer who installed the boiler in the first place. Under his instruction, I removed the front of the boiler and he got me to poke/ twist/ test/ whack various bits of the boiler, but to no avail. He said he needed to have a think because a couple of things weren’t making sense to him (I assumed about the boiler and not about life in general), so the call was terminated and I went to light the wood burner. 

Andy and I spent the evening trying to engage the services of a heating engineer. Of course, they were all booked up and unavailable until after Christmas. My brother lives 250 miles away, so a bit too far for him to come and put things right. Also, he had a hospital appointment the following day for some ongoing eye treatment. 

And then he called back. ‘I know what’s wrong,’ he said. ‘The something or other do-dah motor has failed and I suspect the pump has died, too,’ he said. This was a Thursday. He sent the link for the do-dah motor, which was the initial suspect and was, thankfully, in stock at our local ScrewFix. Andy collected it on Friday which we spent being thankful we had the wood burner for warmth and the electric immersion tank for hot water. 

And then on Saturday, my son-in-law came over with an array of tools and replaced the motor with speed and efficiency because he is excellent with all things mechanical, even though he’d never tinkered with an oil boiler before. The boiler tried to fire up, a hopeful plume of condensed air flew up from the outlet pipe but…no, still no proper boiler action. Another call to my brother, some chat between him and my son-in-law, and Andy was dispatched to ScrewFix again to collect a new pump, also thankfully in stock! Good old ScrewFix! 

I made lunch for everyone, then my son-in-law ventured forth to fit the new pump. Again, the boiler was trying to fire. Another call to my brother who said, ‘Give that thing there a tap with a hammer,’ and suddenly, ‘whoosh!’ - we were boilered up again! Great joy and celebrations were had by all for the resuscitation of the boiler and a lot of satisfaction that it had been mended without having to call out an external engineer. I thought, we are a resourceful family team when it matters. 

I felt a bit bad bothering my brother because he was fresh from the hospital having had an injection in each eye and he was looking a bit squinty and clearly feeling sore and fed up, so I sent him a cheese hamper as thanks for his help. 

And I embroidered a cat paw over a hole that my son-in-law had in his favourite t-shirt.

Of course, I was boiler hypervigilant for a couple of days, but all is well and ticketty boo and I know a lot more about boilers than I used to, which is helpful. Maybe. My brother said the boiler had done well lasting for eight years without needing any replacement parts, which reminds me - I need to order a new wiper blade for the rear windscreen wiper on my car because something long and rubbery was flapping in the wind yesterday whilst I was out.

Anyway, Happy New Year to you all! I am going to do a lot of writing today because the urge is upon me. It is currently minus 3 degrees; the skies, still dark, are dotted with all the bright stars and Venus is looking very shiny and glorious. The grass is scattered with its own stars of frost. Just lovely!