The On-Going Saga of Our Radiators…

What have I said already about our radiators? I said we had let the air out about 5 times… But still, after a while, the top half went cold and the bottom stayed hot… So the house hasn’t been freezing, but it hasn’t warmed up as much as it should, or usually does. I’ve been putting one of my mother’s shawls round my shoulders for that little extra warmth.

Pete, our man who put the new shower in, arrived to do another job for us. He checked them out and also bled them. Still no luck after about half an hour.

Dave rang the help line we have. We have some insurance we pay a little each month that means we can call someone out to fix a problem. A man came out first thing the next morning. A lovely man… I have to say that as my dogs all fell in love with him and nearly licked him to death! He has a boxer, he told me. He used to have five, all but one were rescues. He obviously knows dogs. My dogs sensed it.  l ways trust people who my dogs accept.

He bled the radiators for us and also tried adding some water to one. Made sense to me as there had been so much air in the system. He left… Then rang us a couple of hours later. I went and felt the radiators… All back to normal… NOT WORKING… He popped back and bled them again and left his firm’s office number and said to ring them if they weren’t working again after he had left.

Needless to say… They still went cold. Dave rang the firm. This was last Friday, a week after Pete had tried to fix the problem. They’d send a man out after 2.00pm on Monday. That was fine as far as we were concerned. I just continued to wear a shawl over my sweater. It was either that or a coat!

Monday afternoon arrived… We were ready for the plumber to arrive… But he hadn’t got here by 4pm. Dave rang the firm. ‘The plumber was definitely on his way…’ they told him. So we waited…. and waited…. and waited. Dave rang again. Same answer; ‘Plumber was delayed but he will be there.’ Fine… So we waited some more.

At 5.15pm Dave rang yet again… ‘Our man was delayed… He’ll be there sometime after 12 noon tomorrow!’

Around 4.30pm Tuesday, a man did arrive. Another nice man. At least this rather unreliable firm hired pleasant people to work for them. This chap knew nothing about our appointment from yesterday, but said they were very busy at the minute.

I told him that all his firm had to do was ring us and be honest and say there was delay… and could we wait till the next day? Of course we could. It wasn’t an emergency… there was no flooding of water everywhere, and the radiators did let off some heat.

By this time, Dave had had a good look at the boiler in the shed. He thought there was a bit of a problem with it… So I led the man to the shed… Turns out, that was were the problem lay. He then had to bleed the radiators again… How many times is that now? I’ve forgotten!

He said there may be a problem… If there was, he’d replace something or other… He’ll ring in a day or two, or we should call the firm.

So far, so good. No problem… All the radiators are – at last – working fine and are hot from bottom to top. I’ve put my shawl away again!

I hope that is the end of the boring saga!