Things fall apart
May. 16th, 2011 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatAbout a month ago, the boiler started emitting an almighty whine, very audible even outside the house. Boiler Man 1 came just before Easter, and decreed that it was a problem with the fan. Boiler Man 2 came a week ago and fitted a new fan, Pellinor having taken the day off work to let him and various other handymen in. As I approached the house after work, the whining was happening just as loudly as ever. "It's still whining!" I said as I got in. "Um... Oh! Oh yes, so it is!" said Pellinor in surprise, despite the fact that he'd spent the last few hours next to it. Today Boiler Man 3 came, spent two hours scratching his head, reading the manual and phoning experts, but he seems to have fixed it. Apparently the problem was technobabble technobabble technobabble.
Over a year ago, the shower over the bath became very stiff, so I could only turn it off by using one of those round plastic things they sell to help open jars, and sometimes couldn't turn it off at all. I've been using the shower cubicle in the en suite instead, but clearly the other one needed to be fixed. Shower Man came on the Day of the Handymen last week, and has now made it beautifully easy to turn off. However, when I tried to use it, I found that instead of producing a nicely warm shower at 5 on the dial, it produced a boily hot one at about 1.4 and upwards, and a freezy cold one at about 1.2 and under. Pellinor claims to be able to fix this, but no results yet.
A few months ago, the squirty water thing on the rear wiper of my car stopped working. When we took the car in for its MOT about a month ago, we asked them to fix this. They fixed it perfectly... but unfortunately in doing so they managed to disable to rear wiper, so any attempt to turn it one resulted in lovely jets of cleaning fluid, but nothing else. This finally got fixed on Saturday.
Today, about an hour after the boiler was finally fixed, I turned the over on. A few minutes later, it stopped working, taking computer, radio etc etc. with it. I prodded likely-looking switches on the box on the wall and got the power back, then prodded random buttons on the oven until it started working again. However, when I came to serve the dinner, I found that while it had spent the time roaring encouragingly, it hadn't actually been producing any heat. Which is kind of unhelpful in an oven, really.
Finally, the washing machine refused to start this morning, and merely sat there rotating its dial endlessly. I switched it off and on again, prodded it a bit, bribed it with a new washing powder tablet and finally got it to work, but I suspect it will die dramatically about an hour after we get the oven fixed. It seems to be the time for things to fail. The house clearly knows that we've got a dozen visitors coming at the Bank Holiday weekend, and is determined to make things hard for us.
Over a year ago, the shower over the bath became very stiff, so I could only turn it off by using one of those round plastic things they sell to help open jars, and sometimes couldn't turn it off at all. I've been using the shower cubicle in the en suite instead, but clearly the other one needed to be fixed. Shower Man came on the Day of the Handymen last week, and has now made it beautifully easy to turn off. However, when I tried to use it, I found that instead of producing a nicely warm shower at 5 on the dial, it produced a boily hot one at about 1.4 and upwards, and a freezy cold one at about 1.2 and under. Pellinor claims to be able to fix this, but no results yet.
A few months ago, the squirty water thing on the rear wiper of my car stopped working. When we took the car in for its MOT about a month ago, we asked them to fix this. They fixed it perfectly... but unfortunately in doing so they managed to disable to rear wiper, so any attempt to turn it one resulted in lovely jets of cleaning fluid, but nothing else. This finally got fixed on Saturday.
Today, about an hour after the boiler was finally fixed, I turned the over on. A few minutes later, it stopped working, taking computer, radio etc etc. with it. I prodded likely-looking switches on the box on the wall and got the power back, then prodded random buttons on the oven until it started working again. However, when I came to serve the dinner, I found that while it had spent the time roaring encouragingly, it hadn't actually been producing any heat. Which is kind of unhelpful in an oven, really.
Finally, the washing machine refused to start this morning, and merely sat there rotating its dial endlessly. I switched it off and on again, prodded it a bit, bribed it with a new washing powder tablet and finally got it to work, but I suspect it will die dramatically about an hour after we get the oven fixed. It seems to be the time for things to fail. The house clearly knows that we've got a dozen visitors coming at the Bank Holiday weekend, and is determined to make things hard for us.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-16 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-17 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-17 07:33 am (UTC)It is true though that every breaks at the same time. With us it was washing machine, fridge, TV and then one by one all six radiators burst and the boiler got condemned.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-17 08:30 am (UTC)