Let it snow

It's old news but I'm going to document it to save arguments down the line. It finally snowed properly in London two weeks ago. It was the first time we've had a substantial snow fall in 14 months - I know this because the the last time we had one I promptly bought a sledge, which then sat in the garage gathering dust until February 5th, 2012. Fortunately the snow fell overnight on the Saturday, so Sunday was spent sledging, the kids built a snowman next door (cheers Simon) and then I slow roasted an aromatic five-spiced shoulder of pork. I can't believe I was a vegetarian for so long.

Our local park looked like a massive expanse of apres ski and everyone was beaming from ear-to-ear. Great how inclement weather gets the Brits in a good mood.

The snow of course affected our boiler - the condensation pipe was hanging away from the brass pipes, and water was steadily dripping into a saucepan. Our gas fitter was busy until Tuesday but duly came around (on time too!) and declared the pipe OK. It's meant to hang. Of course by then it had stopped dripping. Turns out the outside pipe had frozen so the water was coming back down the condensation pipe instead of draining off. The solution is to insulate the outdoor pipe with something. The gas fitter wouldn't accept payment. I love that guy. If you need a gas fitter/boiler man in London I'll happily pass on his details. (Contact me via Twitter)

The snow also affected our Volvo - turns out 7 onboard computers (?) use up battery power in a month, and not driving it drains the battery, especially in the cold. I'd have thought Volvo of all cars would be OK left in the snow but apparently not. Maybe I left the heated seat thing on. Oh well. Another thing to deal with.

Finally, the snow meant we were stuck indoors gawping at our walls and we decided to hang some artwork up. Only we didn't have all the bits that you need so had to order a bunch of supplies. Three framed pictures are up, but the rest were left leaning on a cabinet. Which unfortunately wobbled when I put something away... causing the largest unhung picture to topple forward, bringing down another 3 like dominoes. The smash was extraordinary and the shower of glass was something else. I now have to take 4 pictures to the local framers and sort them out, and then get them hung before anything else happens to them.

Downstairs wall update

This is a white expanse of wall. And it may look like the most boring thing you've seen in a while but if you scroll back through these posts, you'll see that this used to be home to a rusty, ancient boiler. The Polish builder managed to get it looking pretty good, though it will need proper plastering at some point to make it super smooth. In the meantime, the only reminder that the boiler was there is the old power point to the top left of this photo, and that will be replaced with a less noticeable face plate sometime in the next millennium.



The rest of the room looks like the photos above and below - even on a grey, overcast day there's loads of light. The whole motivation for moving the boiler was to increase the value of the property - and reduce our massive gas bills - and the valuer came around this morning. Unfortunately bank valuers are somewhat more conservative than real estate valuers so we're sitting tight and hoping that the figure he comes up with will allow our new mortgage rate to be something reasonable... it's all based on how much we owe vs how much the house is worth. We should know in the next couple of days.

Office, boiler & outdoor furniture

This is the office nook with the desk and computer back in place. As you can see the boiler is kind of... dominant, and while a lovely bit of kit, it does make some odd noises. We've had a quote in from the Polish builder to house it in a cupboard with shelving underneath. This solution will muffle some of the gurgles and clicks. Not sure exactly when that's going to happen - we need to have the discussion about whether hiding the boiler in a cupboard will add value to the house in the first instance (to get through the mortgage valuation). If not, it can wait for a couple of months.

We arrived back in London on Sunday at 5am and got home a couple of hours later to find our garden was covered in snow. We knew it'd been snowing thanks to the panicked round-the-clock news coverage, but as it happens, the snow was beautiful and despite coming from a tropical climate, we didn't think it was particularly cold.

Annoyingly now that the snow has melted, I can see that three coats of Ronseal hasn't saved the wood on the table (which we only bought this summer) - the wood looks absolutely knackered and swollen with moisture. I'd think about swapping it with our lovely neighbour's identical table but I suspect they might notice. Or worse, be reading this blog!

Making good the wall

The weeks leading up to Christmas were crazy. Not only did the boiler get replaced (and relocated) but we had a lovely and efficient Polish builder over to make good this gaping hole that was now in the downstairs wall. Here it is pictured above, with newspaper covering to try and keep in the polystyrene balls which filled the wall cavity.

A week before Christmas we left the UK for a three week holiday to New Zealand and Malaysia. Three weeks is the longest holiday we've had since moving to the UK over ten years ago.

The dust and debris and suitcases (and cost!) seem like a distant memory as I write this from the Tanjung Rhu resort in Langkawi, especially reading that it's snowing in London this week.

The photo below shows the results of "making good" the wall after the first day, more pics to come of the wall after the plaster has dried. In the meantime, I'm off to try and find a sun lounger that hasn't been reserved by some over enthusiastic visitors from Germany...

Cosy...

Aaaah. Toasty warm house. I am writing this (literally) underneath the new boiler. It's making a comforting humming sound and the occasional rattle as gas or water moves through the pipes and vibrates into the hole shown at the top of this page. The new boiler is going to be housed in a cabinet (yes, another excuse for a bespoke cabinet) which should muffle the sound a bit. The lovely Polish builder who is "making good" the various holes and cracks around the house is popping back in the new year to sort the cabinet.

This photo above shows our sliding door solution - it's hung from a runner which is attached to the ceiling. I am so digging the sliding door action that I would recommend them for any room, preferably pocket ones if you can get inside a wall though. Unfortunately while our hung door looks impressive, it's quite heavy and the builder had to sort out a ceiling crack which appeared recently near the runner. The photo also shows the teeny hole made in the ceiling to accommodate the pipes into the new boiler.

And the photo below shows the boiler in it's new position in the spare room. It cost around £2,800 all up and took nearly three days to install, but by golly, it was worth it - we have OK water pressure in the shower and the heaters are all working better. Result.

Boiler update

I bet you've been wracked with nerves wondering what's going on with our boiler haven't you? No? Oh. Well I'll tell you anyway. Our mortgage is up for renewal early next year and in order for us to get a remotely agreeable interest rate we need the house to be worth quite a bit more than what we paid for it. We've done the sums and they stack up, but unfortunately our next door neighbours sold a few months ago for quite a lot less than what we paid for ours two years ago (because of a chain they needed a quick sale blah blah blah). This means that the value of our house will probably be lowered so that the postcode is all lined up, or whatever the excuse of valuers is.

So, we're going to bite the bullet and move the boiler up a floor into the spare room and box it in there, as having it on show in the dining space is an eyesore. This means my bespoke cabinet is getting further and further away, but it should mean the valuer sees a more streamlined - and expensive - looking property.

As for the boiler dilemma - the plumber reckons our water pressure is 1.7 bars so he says we can have a combi. This is good news because I just read this on a website: "Do not use water from a hot water system or your bathroom taps for drinking or cooking because it usually comes from a storage tank in the loft and is not as fresh or as safe as water directly from the mains." Gah! When hungover I have definitely refilled my bedside glass from the bathroom, and usually give the kids water from the bathroom to save trekking up and down two flights of stairs.

The combi is being delivered on Wednesday and it should take no more than one or two days to install. Of course there'll be a heck of a mess afterwards so we'll need a builder over soon into the new year to "make good" the plasterboard and flooring that will be ripped up to find the pipework. The combi won't have hotel quality water pressure like our current power shower, and it will cost about £2,800 all up (plus whatever the builder charges).

Putting a pump on the header tank in the loft (and installation) will cost another £500, but we're going to see if we can live with normal water pressure first. We used to at our last place so unless it's really bad I guess we'll get by. It is fabulous being able to run a bath in about three minutes but it's not actually necessary. My only concern is if the pressure drops off when someone flushes a loo or runs a tap in another part of the house. Our washing machine and dishwasher are plumbed with cold water only so they shouldn't have any impact on the shower. This is the sort of stuff people normally take for granted, but actually it can make a difference to your life if done badly.

Oh and the photo at top has nothing to do with this post, but the kid on the cover is my daughter from a shoot she did nearly three years ago. This issue of Junior is the January issue and is out now at all good news stands in the UK...

Boiler progression

Img from vaillant.co.uk

Unless you're about to replace your own boiler I can't imagine that this post will be very interesting, but here goes. Rob managed to negotiate the plumber down by £240 by sourcing the boiler off t'internet. This meant that we'd have a new boiler and water storage tank installed for around £2,260.

The date was agreed with the plumber for this Thursday as the boiler was meant to arrive "next working day if ordered by 4pm" . Only it turns out that the boiler can't actually be delivered until sometime on Thursday. Which won't really work as it needs to be here before the plumber kicks off.

Rob has cancelled the order, and postponed the installation date with the plumber.

Now that he's given it some thought, he's making noises about installing a Combi system. This is hugely appealing for several reasons:

1. It means no more boiler in our dining room! So long as the plumber can get access to a gas pipe, the boiler could live up in our spare room, probably above the desk where I'm writing this right now.
2. It means the hot water cupboard in the kids bedroom can go - hoorah! More space!
3. It means no more noisy water pump whenever you run a tap on the top floor
4. It's better for the environment
5. It's cheaper to run

On the downside:

1. If there's a gas outage, we have no hot water
2. Unless we have one bar minimum water pressure, it won't work
3. It'll cost an extra £500 or so
4. We'll have to "make good" the plaster and flooring that gets ripped up to reticulate the pipes

Someone is going to investigate the water pressure this week - unless we have that one bar then we're back to the original plan. I'm not optimistic that the water pressure will pass this test as my "ensuite" is effectively a shoe storage area owing to the dribble that comes out of the shower head...