AAARGGHHH!!!

Here we are; potentially days from exchange of contracts - and what happens?? The blinkin boiler breaks!! That's what!

We awoke on Thursday morning to find water dripping out the bottom of the damn thing. Rik was all for simply concluding that it was defunct, buy another one. I thought we ought to at least check so an engineer is called out. He comes along, twiddles with it a bit; finds water in something called the "air pressure switch" drains it and goes away saying "it should be fine now" or words to that effect.

Except that it isn't. Thursday evening it becomes apparent that it is NOT fine. We go back to Boiler Repair Man company. Oi what you said was fixed isn't; what you gonna do about it? Well say company if you want us to do something now (it being after 6pm) we'll have to charge you an extra fee. Hang on; you want us to pay more for you to come out and fix what you should have fixed first time round???? YES. Are you taking the Michael?

Well we can live with a cold house and no hot water until Friday morning thank you very much. Okay YOU will need to phone us again on Friday morning and explain the situation; we're only the out of hours service. How's that for customer care???

So Friday morning, 9am I phone company again. We'll need to phone you back - can you wait 25 mins. Well I can. We have nothing planned for the am, only a loose idea to take Dan swimming. Of course the reality is I have to phone them 50 minutes later to ask where their " call back" is. Still I do manage to actually speak to someone. Ah yes she says, it seems your air pressure switch needs replacing. Engineer thought it might be okay but if what he did didn't fix it it means it's on the blink; you need a new one. I'm getting you a quote will call back when I have one.

Well to spare you the angst it caused me, Dan's swimming trip goes out the window whilst we are waiting to get some concrete information. Quote comes back acceptable; can engineer come today? I have hair appointment at 3pm; should I cancel it? Maybe wait and see ....... more waiting ....... finally at 1.50pm I phone them AGAIN and say engineer obviously can't make today and I can't cancel my hair appointment so let's not bother. But wait says operator, engineer can come today: at 6pm. Great! Lovely! Except that it's actually 5pm (this is another phone call about 10 mins later!) - which means I have to phone Rik in Reading and ask very nicely if he wouldn't mind coming home since I might not be in time. Rik agrees. I get home at 5.20pm

Guess what?? NO BLIMPING ENGINEER!!!!!!????? At 5.50pm I phone company AGAIN; they know nothing about it. Ring off to try and find him - phone back about 20 minutes later; very apologetic engineer had family emergency and rushed off to deal with it without telling his employers. Well I can understand that. Plus engineer offers to come over and fix problem on Saturday between 12 and 2; no extra cost. Great I think. We can cope with that.

So here we are: at 5.44pm. Do we have a fixed boiler? NO. Has the engineer come to see us? NO. Has anyone at this STUPID COMPANY phoned us??? NO. Are they even answering their phones. NOOOOO. And of course it now being the bank holiday if we want to go elsewhere we're going to have to pay premium rates to get someone. Unless we leave it til next Tuesday when I have to be at work for a training course I don't want to go on and on Wednesday we're going away. Maybe we should just leave it........! Do we need hot water that much?

I don't expect anyone to have any great solutions: just wanted a rant!