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Nov. 23rd, 2005 03:10 am1:30 am, I smell gas, even though my nose is blocked. Hmm, I think.
2:15 am, the man from Transco turns up. “It’s coming out of here,” he says, pointing the nozzle of his special gas-detecting machine at the gas ring I use most often. “It's full on.” Except it isn’t, it’s switched off. “Maybe the knob is loose.” He lifts off the dial that lies flat beside it, inspects it, then lifts off the dial next to it for comparison. “Looks all right.” He replaces them, switches on his machine again. “Bloody hell, it’s coming out of both of them now.”
Gas is now also escaping from the gas ring controlled by the other dial he lifted off. (Are you following so far?) It's only when he lifts a third dial that he realises gas is also escaping from under the dials themselves—that is, from under the entire surface of my cooker. “Fucking hell, mate,” he says, “I never seen that before.” Something inside my cooker has, without warning or provocation, catastrophically failed. His machine even finds gas escaping from inside the oven, which is electric. He switches off my entire gas supply, as it’s an immediate risk and there's no way to isolate this sudden and extraordinary leak.
I now have no heating (including hot water) in my flat until I can replace the cooker. Sadly, the man who lived here before me chose to refurbish the kitchen and installed many fine features, including some impressively hefty worktops—into one of which my cooker is solidly embedded. This is going to take a good while and I’m going to be cold.
Bah bloody humbug all right, and we’re still only paddling about in November.
2:15 am, the man from Transco turns up. “It’s coming out of here,” he says, pointing the nozzle of his special gas-detecting machine at the gas ring I use most often. “It's full on.” Except it isn’t, it’s switched off. “Maybe the knob is loose.” He lifts off the dial that lies flat beside it, inspects it, then lifts off the dial next to it for comparison. “Looks all right.” He replaces them, switches on his machine again. “Bloody hell, it’s coming out of both of them now.”
Gas is now also escaping from the gas ring controlled by the other dial he lifted off. (Are you following so far?) It's only when he lifts a third dial that he realises gas is also escaping from under the dials themselves—that is, from under the entire surface of my cooker. “Fucking hell, mate,” he says, “I never seen that before.” Something inside my cooker has, without warning or provocation, catastrophically failed. His machine even finds gas escaping from inside the oven, which is electric. He switches off my entire gas supply, as it’s an immediate risk and there's no way to isolate this sudden and extraordinary leak.
I now have no heating (including hot water) in my flat until I can replace the cooker. Sadly, the man who lived here before me chose to refurbish the kitchen and installed many fine features, including some impressively hefty worktops—into one of which my cooker is solidly embedded. This is going to take a good while and I’m going to be cold.
Bah bloody humbug all right, and we’re still only paddling about in November.
