Boiling Point

Adding to the crazy is our dodgy boiler which *huge sigh of relief* was fixed under warranty today after a week of stress.

The warranty bit was in huge debate after I called up Alpha, the boiler manufacturer, last Wednesday to find out that the seven-year warranty had not in fact been registered when the boiler was installed.  Installed by the man who sold the house to us and is now our neighbour:  "I cannot remember tbh.  I am terrible at forgetting to subscribe to these warranty's" was his excuse.  Not the answer you're looking for when you've been told it'll cost £600+ to replace the PC board privately!!!

We only found out because we had a plumber round to service the boiler (a service I've been planning to get since March oops) and the day before the appointment we discovered a leak which tripped all the electrics in the laundry room.  As it happens the plumber didn't make any attempts to fix the leak because it should still have been under warranty which would have been voided if he'd done anything, and worse, he feared the whole brain of the boiler was about to 'blow'.  Not blow as in blow up, but blow as in pack in and leave us with no hot water or heating if the water pressure increased too much, hence my call to Alpha.

Thankfully, after many phone calls, the kind Alpha area rep agreed to back date our warranty and yesterday we got confirmation that an engineer would be round to fix the leak.  And not before time: we've been pretty restrictive on the showering since Wednesday fearing the complete blow-up of the PC board. On Saturday afternoon alone the electricity was tripped four times, at which point I decided to cut out losses and turn the heating off.  Surely it's been off for weeks I hear you cry?!  But no, this house is cold (especially in mingin' weather) and with no insulation in any wall, floor or ceiling we need the heating on at least a little bit to keep life bearable.  So thank goodness for our stove, and Schlumberger for having hot showers, though taking the boys there to shower on a Sunday morning before getting to church at 8am to set up probably added to some of the weekend stress!

All in all, we're all breathing a huge sigh of relief this evening that the boiler and heating is now back and running as normal, and with a warranty that continues till 2021!  Thank you kind Alpha area rep.