Believe it or Not.....!

As I stepped out of bed this morning those immortal words of Victor Meldrew shot through my mind - "I DON'T BELIEEEEEEVE IT!" The air was cooler than expected and the towel rail in the bathroom was cold. A quick inspection of the boiler confirmed my worst suspicions - the central heating had packed in. After 3 weeks of domestic technical misfortune, this was all I needed.

When we built the house 3 years ago we went green and installed an air source heat pump. Very efficient and most effective, but by jings it isn't half complicated. In simple terms there is a pump and a boiler and to work they have to talk to each other. This morning they weren't speaking after being upset by yesterday's power failure. I tried all kinds of mediation but reconciliation was not on their agenda and they refused to communicate.

Fortunately, the good people at Ecoliving in Glasgow, who I have got to know quite well over the past 3 years, were soon on the case. Now getting an engineer to our part of the country for an urgent job like ours isn't going to happen quickly, so they were happy to talk me through potential remedies and let me try and fix the fault. Hence today's blip of the inside of our heat pump in the back garden. This is where I was guided to by the engineer and instructed to press several little buttons until the happy couple were once again on speaking terms. Certainly a lot quicker and cheaper than waiting for an engineer to visit, but I couldn't help wondering how an elderly or infirm person would cope with such a breakdown.

Big thanks to Keith and Andy, the engineers who identified the fault and talked me through the solution.

Here's hoping this puts an end to recent technical mayhem!

Now where's that tortoise?