drip, drip, drip and globalisation

I notice a small blob of water on the hall floor yesterday evening.  Really small, not much bigger than a raindrop.  I wipe it up assuming I must have spilled some water on my way to and fro sometime.  A few hours later I see another one.  

It’s only when the early morning light shines in the room that I notice a small drop of water hanging from the bottom of the hall radiator.  And another near the top.  And it’s not until I take this picture that I see a blister on the paint and two pin pricks. 

A plumber once told me that the design life of modern radiators is 5 years.  This one has lasted just two.  A consequence of globalisation I guess - we want lots of stuff and we don’t want to pay much for it.  Cheap labour and cheap materials.

The house is over 40 years old and the original radiators were still going strong for at least 30 of those years.  We gradually replaced the old ones as we renovated and decorated.  They were big and heavy and rusty.  But they didn’t leak.  

The original hall radiator was replaced in 2007. The new one sprang a leak in 2014 spraying a fine jet of dirty water all over the wall.  We changed it.  And now we’re going to change it again.  It’s relatively small and a new one will cost less than the labour charge for actually fitting it.  ‘Nuff said?


BTW - we’ve done all the preventative stuff; drained the system, power flush, inhibitor.  And we’ve still replaced 5 new ones since 2007.  If the plumber is correct we’ve had our money’s worth.