A seeping problem

I have what is technically called an ensuite bathroom that I've been using as a shoe storage facility. The water pressure was so dire it was pointless using the shower, but I could stack six boxes up to the roof. In December we got a new boiler installed and at the time the plumber had tested the shower pressure in the ensuite.

Two days ago I noticed that one of the plastic shoe boxes was half full of gungy coloured water. The shower head had been dribbling for the last four months. I pulled out all the boxes, the one pictured below was the worst of them: 18 pairs of shoes were water damaged, 10 were so far gone that they were unsalvageable. My £300 pair of suede Christian Louboutins - which are so uncomforable I've worn them three times - were mouldy. Of all my shoes, these are the one pair I wanted to save (£100 per wear is ridiculous, regardless of comfort).

Unfortunately, moving the boxes meant that the water was able to seep into a broken wall tile and within hours the ceiling in the TV room AND the spare room had both developed ugly brown watermarks.

Rob has now blocked off the leaky shower attachment with a special plug. He's going to do an emergency paint job tomorrow night. We have 48 hours to get it looking reasonable as the bank valuer is coming over for another round - the last valuation was so ludicrous we decided not to pursue a mortgage with that particular bank... great timing, but these things never seem to happen at a good time. It really is never ending isn't it?

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...

Kitchen inspiration and fridges

This is the sort of aesthetic I like for a kitchen - lots of white, wood and slate. My current kitchen is lots of wood and white tiles. I still love the wood but I really hate those tiles. It doesn't help that they don't sit completely flush thanks to our flakey builder.

When we stayed in Florida two weeks ago we agreed that the American style fridge (ie side by side, with ice and chilled water on tap) made perfect sense. It was also ecologically better than drinking water from bottles (as we do now) because a litre of water is used to manufacture the plastic bottle, such a waste. We agreed that if the water was filtered and chilled we'd drink it, so goodbye to the piles of bottles we need to recycle each week.

People have been asking if we're living in the new place yet. The answer is a firm no. There is so much building work to be done that it's just impractical with two small children. We'll be paying two mortgages (arrgghh!) for the immediate future. Hopefully no more than three or four months, but we know that the glazing can't be ordered until the extension is nearly finished, and once we order it there's a 9-12 week delay. So I guess it could take longer than four months all up. Once we're ready to move we need to repaint our flat and get it ready to rent out. I'll keep you posted, literally.