Unhinged

At last, the great refurb project approaches its end. Not without a hiccup or two, though. Carpets were to be laid on Tuesday but I had to re-schedule because of a bit of grief the day before.

It began with a visit from my boiler expert. I lost heat towards the end of last week. Thinking that perhaps I'd run out of oil I ordered a delivery, but when I fired up the system after the refill it turned itself off after five minutes or so and I've been without heat ever since. A quick inspection showed that my water pump had given up the ghost, so I phoned the plumber who'd removed the back boiler and the fireplace two weeks ago. He said he'd be with me the next day but he ended up being here only an hour later because I'd inadvertently drilled into a water pipe and had to summon him on an emergency call-out. There was no way the carpet could be laid until the floors dried after Seán the plumber stopped the water spout and the drip, drip, drip down into the hall. At first they said they'd come on Thursday but called back shortly afterwards to change that to next Tuesday.

In the mean time Seán had to go for reassessment for his REGI certification on Tuesday and was called to an emergency on Wednesday, so it was today (at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am) that he and his mate turned up to fit the new water pump (charge: €350). They overlapped with Damien the window fitter.

I'd noticed recently that some of my windows weren't closing properly and the scope of the problem became obvious as the various workmen opened window after window for ventilation and window after window failed the closing test. It's a common problem apparently, caused by failure of the hinges due to lack of regular oiling. Each opening pane had to be inspected today and it turned out that ten of the twelve throughout the house needed to be replaced — at a cost of €80 each, so the seemingly unending list of expenditure took another sizeable hit today. The blip shows a pile of some of the uncooperative hinges after their removal.