The only bright spot

This was the only bright spot in my day.

The electrics blew last evening. We managed to pin down the problem to one of the socket circuits (so at least we had light and some power). We called an electrician out today and the problem was a fault in the thermostat in the hot water tank, so he disconnected it. Our central heating system is covered so we got a British Gas engineer out. And that's when the problems really started.

The thermostat is obsolete and can't be replaced as the part is no longer made.

We can control the water temperature to a certain extent by a dial in the airing cupboard, but the plastic it's made of is getting very brittle and beginning to disintegrate. The dial is obsolete and can't be replaced as the part is no longer made.

While he was here, I got the engineer to look at the temperature control on the side of the fire in the lounge as it's very stiff and won't turn properly. Guess what? The control is obsolete and can't be replaced as the part is no longer made.

Well, the system is 29 years old so it's not surprising that it's all obsolete. But it means that we need a new central heating boiler and gas fire.

Sigh...

The system is working - we have heating and hot water - but it's on its last legs so we're hoping nothing else will go wrong before we replace it in the spring.