It's no more golf for me for four weeks due to the new restrictions For me it's not the end of the world as I can always fill my time with other hobbies, shopping for essentials and a bit more housework, etc.,. But for some, if we believe what we see on the BBC news, it's a major problem. Much of it can be attibuted to many people not abiding by the sensible rules already in place for the protection of us all. I had a chat with my wife and we've decided that I'll decorate the kitchen. We've been putting off getting someone in to do it for months, because of Covid. Otherwise it's unlikely to get done this year. It's half tiled, so it was just the ceiling, needing a bit of painting and papering the walls. This is how it looked after we'd had fitters put in a new kitchen back in 2004. I'd already put in a false ceiling and 8 spotlights that my wife wanted with her new kitchen. I did the electrics, the tiling, the decorating and laid the laminate floor. With just two people in the house it got very little wear. Until three years ago when we went from this. To this, as we had a new boiler fitted. My wife thought she was getting (another) new kitchen, assuming it would be impossible to sort out the problem as the company which supplied the kitchen had gone bust. We also had to replace the fridge/freezer at the same time. The only other Bosh we could get was an inch taller than the old one. So I decided to lose the top cupboard and have an even taller one. I found a firm able to make me a new matching door, so with a bit of "fettling" and some more pelmet, we ended up with this.The handle for the new door came off the removed cupboard above the fridge/freezer, the original door front I cut down to make a blanking fillet abobe the fridge/freezer. The new larger tiled "L" shaped fillet that hides all the boiler pipework can be slid out and the centre bit of the lower pelmet in front of the boiler can be removed, as the boiler front has to swing down for servicing. Just two half moon bolts keep it in position. Coincidentally, you can see if the boiler is on or off as the status light, green or blue, is visible between the pelmet and the bottom of the new door. But I'd been putting off having the kitchen redecorated, because we didn't want the disruption. My wife said that now I'm eighty, I could do a bit each day and spread it over a week. Anyway I decided to do it my way, can't do with dragging things out. I striped the wallpaper on Friday and did a bit of down rubbing down where necessary, cleaned the ceiling and gave it two coats of paint Continued in next post
I gave the ceiling a third coat yesterday, and hung the wallpaper. That was a pain when working above the worktops, either you kneel or stand crouching down. We chose this red, it matches some of our small appliances. It's a bit 1950s "American diner," but we like it. As you can see the kitchen units are still in perfect condition. Can't say the same for the appliances. Every one has had to be replaced, the oven, washing machine, fridge/freezer, dishwasher and the tumble dryer in the cupboard under stairs twice! But most of these under guarantee. I'd created a couple of narrow shelves for boiler and appliances instruction and a few cookery books. The boxing in over the boiler finally got papered.
Okay... the new cabinet looks great but, what does your boiler do? does this heat your house? is this your hot water source? just curious as we don't have this type of system. ours would be in a utility room or the basement. A boiler for us would be a furnace that heats the water for baseboard heating or a water tank that heats up the water for hot water both of them would be sitting on the floor..
The most common boilers in this country at this moment are gas combination boilers, or "combi boilers" for short. They are very efficient, they come in different sizes, depending on how many radiators they have to service. In this case a small boiler, as ours is a small house. We have seven radiators and a heated towel rail. The boiler has a timer for the central heating, we set ours to go on at 7.00 am and off at midnight. The temperature of the heating however depends on what setting you have on the thermostat on the wall on the hall. All our radiators can be adjusted by the "thermostatic" valves they have on them. But all ours are on full. If it gets too hot or too cold in the house we either turn down or turn up the thermostat in the hall. We rarely close the internal doors of rooms in which have radiators, so the whole house stays more or less the same temperature. Having said that, enough heat rises to make it unnecessary to have the bedroom radiators turned on at all. If you turn on a hot tap at any time of the day, regardless of what temperature you've set the thermostat in the hall, or whatever time the clock on the boiler indicates, you get hot water. The boiler stays on until you turn off the tap. Long term the Government want to get rid of gas boilers, can't see it happening in my lifetime. Before combis, many houses like ours had a back boiler behind a gas fire in the fireplace in the living room. There would be a hot water tank in an airing cupboard upstairs and a cold water tank to fill it up, which was connected to the mains, in the roof.
thank you. most of our newer homes do not have this. my inlaws do but its a little different. theirs is only for heating the house. they have a separate water heater not as part of the heating system. we have a water heater but it HUGE compared to yours. ours is a 5' tall tank that is only used for potable water.
Because the stuff I needed for Friday, I went to Homebase on Thursday, but usually for a lot of things I purchase, I look no further than e-Bay. But I've been doing it for years and have had over 500 transactions, with never a problem. I'm sure a lot more people will be moving to on-line sales at the present time and not go back to previous shopping patterns. At the moment, having finished the kitchen, one of the eight ceiling lights are out. I could get the car out, go to Homebase tomorrow, a seven mile return trip and mess about with a mask, get "navigated" around the store and find a 50w halogen bulb. I do see on their website they are £2.50 each or a pack of 4 for £12.50, probably be the same price in store if they have them, but I did notice their stock was very depleted on Thursday. But I don't mind waiting a few days, I've just ordered 10 Bitish made lamps from a firm with 99% plus feedback over 7000 items, for £9.99 post free. There's just no argument is there? In the last couple of weeks, I've ordered from eBay and received, post free, a new remote control for my Humax HDR tuner/recorder (£6.49) glue for my wife's card making hobby, a USB stick, a replacement glass for my car's wing mirror, somebody broke, (£5.25) a roll of wire fencing for the garden, a Daniel O'Donell CD for my wife and also for he, a Contour legacy leg pillow (£8.69, they are £19.99 in Asda). it's saved me a lot of money.
Your handiwork looks very nice.... The water heater and the house heat are separate here. And my home is small and old too.
Thats confusing ! We have a hot water heater for the sinks and bathing ! Our home heating is from window units for both heat and cooling !
Interesting Doghouse. I take it your house is on a gas line? You don't have a propane tank outside? We have an oil burning boiler in the basement for house heat. It also heats the water for our sinks, etc and we have a good sized water tank to store the heated water. Other folks around here are getting mini-splits. I think they are heat pumps and used for heating and cooling. Supposed to be energy efficient and cost effective. I don't understand the technology.
I read your initial posting and have been following the thread with interest. Not because I am such a technical chap, rather because after buying this apt. a couple of years ago I had to immediately replace the heating source. Now then, the way this apt building works is that the owners have a association and all sorts of things get determined. One being that we have a contract with a company that checks and maintains our heating. So then, when we needed a new heater, we investigated and decided upon a certain type of what we call a “combi-kettle”, which I believe is what you were talking about. When we informed the contract company of our choice there was light resistance, but in the end they went along with our selection. (The contract company installs these heating units). We wondered why they were pushing a different type of combi- kettle...but one need look no further than the terms of our contract. You see, the company is contracted to do an annual check and to perform ad hoc service should we have problems. The labour is covered under the contract so you pay only for parts. After consulting a friend who knows about these things and reading on internet we found out that the brand they advised works with complete kits instead of individual replacement parts. So, it is much less work time to replace a whole kit than taking the thing apart to replace a small part. A kit is more expensive (our cost) and little labour (their cost), a small replacement part is cheaper for us but more work for them. I have something against this idea of, “easy” for this sort of thing. It seems like it always comes out in someone else’s favour, and more expensive for me. Phooey! I first came into contact with this kit idea when my auto broke down in the desert of southern Morocco...but that crazy story is for another time perhaps, although it has nothing to do with gardening.
Riley, I like the neatness of your kitchen. Both of you must be tidy people. Very nice. We have a water tank which heats water for showers, kitchen , and laundry. I have heard of Tankless hot water, but never understood.
I'm quite lucky as I'm a member of a golf club. Most trades are represented amongst the members, so you can get jobs done at "mates rates," Eighteen years ago we had our house rewired, by a golfing friend, another services my car. The boiler was installed by "the handicap secretary," he also does the servicing. There are very few homes in suburban areas of the U.K, that don't have a mains gas supply. Same with water, electricity and cable TV.
With so much work being done in your house by golfing buddies...it makes me wonder if you ever get teed-off at them for doing less than optimal work.
The only problem with combis is that you have to let the water run for a minute before you get any hot water, but they are very efficient. A lot of heat can be lost by storing many gallons of hot water in an insulated tank in an airing cupboard. When we changed from a conventional boiler to a combi, there was a noticeable reduction in our gas bills. We have a 13kw electric shower.
