(no subject)

[webofevil]

1:30 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.

Comments

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

We've got a plug-in radiator you can borrow if you can get it round to your gaff.

[setting-sun.livejournal.com]

I saw a Transco van outside my house and the logo on the side said this:-

"Transco - piping gas, for you."

Well that's comforting.

[ex-cornfedpi814.livejournal.com]

You want to switch to one of them electricity suppliers that sponsors the weather report - they keep going, "whatever the weather". Gee, I guess we should be grateful.

I have some gloves you could borrow. But I need them back by lunchtime.

[amuchmoreexotic.livejournal.com]

This is why fitted kitchens are a bad idea. I once lived in a flat where the water hose to the washing machine started leaking, and when we went to turn the valve to close off the supply of water, we found that a wooden panel in one of the kitchen units was in the way.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

Bless you, I should be okay—I'ma* call a few workmen today, get them in sharpish, plus the Transco guy left me a small fan heater last night. "You're lucky," he said, "we don't usually carry these around in the van." "Why the fuck not?" was the question I maybe should have asked but didn't, in view of the whole gift-horse/mouth thing. But thank you.

* Black-Eyed Peas in the house!

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Get a CORGI registered plumber to come round and disconnect your cooker from the gas mains completely. Then you can put your gas back on for heating purposes, but you'll have to live with microwaved food until you cna buy a new cooker.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

PS: why didn't the TRANSCO man do this? Divot.

[uitlander]

Quite possibly because there are now loads of sub categories of registration, and they are only allowed to tinker with the gas appliances they are registered for (each registration costs a couple of hundred quid to get). So he's probably not allowed to disconnect the cooker on pain-of-being-sacked-for-being-helpful. Or so the moany maintenance/handy man at work claims anyway.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

The cooker's built-in, so any disconnecting will involve removing either the bulk of the cooker or the work surfaces around it. He didn't have the tools for that, and anyway if someone on an emergency gas callout has to tick around for more than 30 minutes to track down and/or deal with your gas leak, they have to start charging. As I say, he left me with a small fan heater, so it really could have been worse. Anyway, no heating in the morning, washing in cold water: if only my old housemaster could see me now. "I was right!" he'd be chuckling, damn it all.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

This is also a possibility: the category list on the CORGI website (http://www.corgi-gas-safety.com/section_gas_law/about_installer_find_installer.asp) is pretty exhaustive, and would certainly set you back a few bob if you fancied registering for all of it.

(Christ, this is all very dull, isn't it? It's like that Armando Iannucci sketch with a magician convincing children not to waste their youth by introducing them to the terminally boring world of adults: "This... is a radiator key. A-ZA-ZA-ZOOM!")

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

Oh all right, "stick around".

[uitlander]

Hot water... kettle? At least you could mix it with the cold tap to have a sinkful of warm water.

This all sounds nasty, uncomfortable and expensive - you have my sympathy on all counts.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Gosh, how vile. :\