Too Much Pressure

The main problem with living in an old house is that things tend to go wrong. They break, fuse, leak and flood -- and quite frequently.

And when these things go awry, they tend to be quite major and therefore quite expensive to fix.

Before Christmas we lost hot water so I called-out a plumber who sorted the water pressure problem (I was convinced that the low pressure was the issue and the engineer seemed to agree). He did this very quickly and easily I might add. You just turn an external knob and to release/increase pressure. A 30 second fix and a job well done and all for a mere £75 call-out! All done, or so I thought..

But no. As soon as the chap departed I tried running a bath -- and still no hot water, just an infrequently tepid flow, or at best, luke-warm. And that's how it's been since -- mainly due to the fact that we're both back at work proper with little time to wait for hours at home for a plumber. Also, it's an expensive cash-only exchange and January is a very long month between paycheques, so we're bit short of the necessary.

Now P and I are very adaptable sorts and quickly adjusted to boiling water on the stove to compensate for our cool bath. But this isn't sustainable, especially in the midst of a decidedly cold snap and with the prospect of having guests stay for a couple of nights. P are happy to share bathwater in the morning, but it won't stretch to four. Yuk for the last one in.

So again I call the engineer who promises to come over as early as possible to negate mid-week office-time disruption. Anyway, said chap arrives at nearly noon (supposed to be 8:30am!!) and does a more thorough job.

Water and heating restored and a fully-serviced boiler and only £250 cash this time. (yum, baked beans til pay-day). Surely now we're sorted. All running well. Hot tap water and toasty radiators. Well, for two days, anyway.

I arrived home last night to find that the boiler had switched itself off and wasn't sparking.

Quick diagnostic and consult the manual.

A-ha -- low water pressure again. I know how to fix that. Turn knob. Watch needle move up on the dial. Promising, but still nothing. Erm..

Refer again to manual. A-ha -- flick ignition switch. Eureka. It sparks into life. Houston, we have lift-off.

..And lift-off is what the needle did. With the system running and with the newly topped-up water in the system the needle just kept rising and rising and rising resting just beyond the red 'danger' marker. But only just beyond.

So all's running well. Kinda. Problem is that there's now too much pressure in the system which is causing dirty brown hot water to escape the pipes and run down the wall of the bathroom below. Not exactly a torrent, but enough to be alarming.

Anyway, I wiped it all up and have left the system on to run-down the pressure a bit -- which seems to be working. Fingers crossed. Actually, thanks to the space-heating lightbulb PJ and RJB insist on having in place when they stay the batroom walls are now drying nicely. (Thanks guys.)

So now our respective flats are moving rapidly toward sale we're off this afternoon to beg and plead with the bank for a re-mortgage and an infusion of funds to get this old house sorted once and for all.

I fear there will be much sobbing and pleading.

But we're used to being cold and damp, so how can a bit more flowing water hurt if we get the wonga..?