I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because rogues sometimes rest.

[reddragdiva]

• Oh, if only we could use these tags.

On Wednesday, redcountess noticed that the boiler pressure was actually pinning the pressure meter, i.e. over 4.5 bar. She promptly switched it off. (So we've been without heat or hot water since then.) Called landlord, called CORGI plumber. The plumber relieved the pressure (we're not sure if the boiler itself has a buggered expansion vessel or not), noted the grosslyunsafe flue, disabled the boiler and put a sticker on it and wrote out a nice warning notice for us.

We got another guy to come over today. His first words: "Jesus, that's terrible!"

He hadn't been told he was supposed to move the boiler, so he couldn't do the job now. But then, it wouldn't actually be possible to do the job now. Because there's pipes underneath, so it can't be moved down, and there's mains wires in conduits in the way of where the flue would have to go. Least worst option is to move it to the back wall of the bathroom. His not-a-quote rough guess for this was in the region of a thousand quid.

He asked if he could get a photo for the horror stories page of Gas Installer, the CORGI official magazine. I took a nice photo for him which I'll email him to send in. The October issue also had a nice article on a landlord's legal responsibilities, which he let me scan, and I'll be sending a copy to the landlord.

It's hard to put into words just how enormously pleased I am: no heat and no hot water and a flue that's been spewing combustion products into the kitchen all this time, with a pregnant woman and one with fibromyalgia. I don't think the landlord is actually evil rather than just stupid, because renting out a property without a gas safety certificate is ridiculously illegal and can lead to jail time. (The agent is unlikely to be responsible as the landlord didn't arrange a maintenance contract. Being a cheap bastard as well as stupid and incompetent.) Not to mention just how stupid you have to be to mess with gas fitting on a bodgy landlord's-mates basis.

So now I have to calmly contemplate just what the hell I say to him to try to get across to him how badly he's fucked up and how heavily HSE could LART him, and work out just what we want from him — break the lease and pay for our moving expenses, fix this immediately and expensively, or what. Gah. A nice cup of crack and a sit-down.

Update: Just left a message for the landlord, starting with "it's bad, it's dangerous, it'll need to be fixed immediately, it'll be expensive, and you're going to have to pay for it" and including the phrases "worst he'd ever seen," "incredibly dangerous" and "grossly illegal." Awaiting his call back.

Update 2: Landlord called back around 10pm. He says he will call around tomorrow and get someone out to fix it conclusively and in a CORGI-compliant manner by Monday. We shall see.

Comments

[greylock.livejournal.com]

It's hard to put into words just how enormously pleased I am: no heat and no hot water and a flue that's been spewing combustion products into the kitchen all this time

I feel the need to laugh at your antiquated British plumbing... almost.
Since I don't quite grok what a boiler might do, and I suspect weeping green tears from ones building isn't a good sign, can I just call your landlord a slum lord and get him a pigs head?

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

I think the word I want here is 'oh, fucking pigshit'.

The world's an annoying place sometimes.

If I'm feeling up to Buses and Trains and Going Outside I'll come up and make you all tea and rissotto sometime next week, mmkay? You sound like you need it...

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

A boiler heats the hot water for central heating (with radiators) and, um, hot water (for washing etc). Not having one that works in winter is a tornado-strength vortex of suck, because insulation in this country leaves something to be desired (like, say, existence).

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

"insulation in this country leaves something to be desired (like, say, existence)"

*gigglechoke* wish I'd not had a mouthful of water when I read that...

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I come from Canadia, where we insulate because we have to. I find it appalling that the insulation in the house in which I currently live is so bad that inside walls feel cold to the touch - means there isn't any insulation between the wall and the ground. Such a waste of energy.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

This country just hasn't got the hang of weather, which is a bit daft considering we have so much of it.

I live in a nice modern house with insulated walls, except for the one next to my bed, keep waking up with a cold bum.... you really needed to know that, didn't you? :) I clicked through to your lj and was captured by the amazing quotes on the info page, hope it was ok to add you to my flist?

[redcountess]

There is some sort of fibreglass in the loft space though.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

After many years of freezing my arse off in British housing, with British people saying "but you're from Canada so you must be used to it", which only provokes the rant about how we have central heating and insulation that WORKS, we bought a 140-year-old terrace house. I don't know what the last owners have done to it, but it actually gets and stays warm in the winter. It's probably not terribly efficient (I know we need a better front door for a start), but at least it's warm.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's fine, of course. :)

Bubble wrap and a curtain on that cold wall will help with the cold bum problem cheaply.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're mid-terrace, two of your walls are insulated by other houses.

If you've got a good south-facing window somewhere then the passive solar heating thing kicks in too.

If you've got a coal cellar (many of the older houses do), you're yet another step ahead.

[redcountess]

A boiler is what Australians call a hot water service, which can also heats a property through radiators, like ours does, hence it's called a combination boiler. It runs on natural gas, but some run on oil.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

The loft here has spray-foam insulation, which does help. It's draughty, though, and none of the hot water pipes up there have any lagging (although since I actually spend time in there I'm not going to change that as it acts as a mini-radiator for me). The cold walls just bug me though.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I'd not known of oil boilers in this country - just gas ones and electric ones.

[wyrdrune.livejournal.com]

I thought you were going to suggest bubblewrapping Hobbit's bum and was about to shout JPEG! :-)

[the_axel]

As a migrant to Canadia, I find that I get colder in winter in the UK largely for this reason. It may be -20 outside, but indoors is always a pleasant +20 degrees.

Yay Canada!

[aidan-skinner.livejournal.com]

Sweet mother of god. You're not renting off of Harry Singh, Glasgow's worst landlord, are you?

TBH I would be highly wary of staying there, even if he does fix it pronto and sharpish. You never know what else is wrong, although bodged boiler is pretty much the top of the list of things that could be fucked.

[wyrdrune.livejournal.com]

There are quite a few - when I lived in Northern Ireland (where there was no mains gas) we had an oil fired boiler, and friends of ours in Wales have one - they tend to be more common in rural areas, hence the bloody annoying jingle we get on our local radio station "Chandlers Oil & Gas" (http://www.chandlersoil.com/pages/index.php)

[redcountess]

BTW, the green stuff is actually some sort of primer showing through bits that they missed when they painted.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Neat - I learn something new every day.

[redcountess]

Oh we have a fair idea, there's also the dodgy light fitting in the bathroom and the loose carpet on the stairs. Also if the plumbing wasn't done properly, I suspect there's the old water tank in the loft space above the old upstairs bathroom, which is now a bedroom.

[reddragdiva]

Oh, fucking yay! I should really poke my head up and have a look ...

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

*whimpers* I think you could actually get him arrested for that, and possibly even jailed.

And let me guess, you don't have a backup immersion heater either because landlord too cheap?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

And are currently very, very expensive to run.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

There is no mains gas in South Wales west of Swansea, so pretty much the whole of South West Wales is heated by oil or else LPG in cylinders. A lot of properties have solar panels to heat water, which helps. Oil isn't cheap though - it costs about £700 to fill the average oil tank, and prices go up after Christmas so people tend to not turn the heating on unless they really can't help it.

The cold at the moment thus isn't bothering me too much; it's not much different to being back in Huntley. It's the lack of hot water (and therefore inability to have a bath and wash my hair) that is starting to get to me.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Yup - see my comment below.