Blue job or pink job?

There's not much worse than returning home, following an enjoyable and well-earned holiday, to find that during your absence, a minor disaster has occurred on the home front. This is what happened to Mrs PBT's and I, after our most recent cruise, and it was a problem with our hot water system that manifested itself whilst we were away. Despite being regularly serviced, our heating and hot water system seems to have form when it comes to going wrong, when we are away from home, so much so that you start to wonder, whether the house is getting its own back, for us not being there!

I remember one summer, when young Matthew was still at school, returning from a relaxing family holiday in a rented house at Winchelsea Beach, and noticing a large puddle on the kitchen floor. The hot water cylinder had mysteriously sprung a leak, allowing the water within to slowly spread itself all over the floor. The solution, of course, was a replacement cylinder – expensive, and inconvenient, but obviously essential!

A dozen or more years later, we returned from a pre-Christmas trip to a European city - Salzburg or Prague, although I can’t remember which one it was. It was suitably cold, as expected for the time of year, and this was a nice touch during the build-up to Christmas, especially as our chosen location was looking suitably festive. Returning home to a freezing cold house, due to a fault with the central heating, wasn’t quite so festive, and certainly wasn’t the pleasant welcome home we were expecting. Fortunately, the builder who had installed the system was able to call round that evening, identify the cause of the problem, and then correct it.

So, what happened this time around?  Well, approximately two-thirds of the way through our cruise, Queen Anne was making a return passage through the Strait of Gibraltar. The timings and the weather were perfect for sightseeing, so that evening the pair of us settled down on our balcony to watch our passage through the famous stretch of water. With our cabin situated on the port side of the ship we had an interrupted view of the coast of North Africa, along with the sprawling port of Tangier.

Courtesy of room service, we had just enjoyed a roast chicken club sandwich, and a generous handful of French fries, so feeling both full and relaxed our pleasant evening was overshadowed by a phone call from home It was son Matthew who was looking after the house, and he was questioning the length of time taken for the water in the kitchen to run hot. I explained that there was quite a lengthy run from the upstairs hot cylinder to the kitchen but that it shouldn't take too long for hot water to flow through.

Well, he said it's been running for quite some time now, and it's only coming through lukewarm. I asked if the boiler was alight, but he didn't know, and instead I had to listen to him panicking about needing a shower in the morning, before going to work. The youth of today, eh? How did he think we managed in the days before central heating and gas-fired boilers?  I replied that he could turn the immersion heater on, and after explaining where the switch was located, and that it would take approximately 30 minutes or more for the tank to heat up he seemed satisfied of sorts. We left it at that, although we received a brief message the following day, confirming that there had been sufficient hot water for his morning shower, and the evening’s washing-up! 

It was a Sunday when Eileen and I arrived home from the cruise. I couldn’t see why the hot water cycle wasn’t working, but I could hear the immersion hissing away, as it did its stuff. I'd already given instructions to Matthew not to leave it switched on for too long, given the price of electricity, but being a Sunday there was no chance of getting a plumber out. In the meantime, we could struggle on with immersion heater, until the engineer who looks after our boiler and central heating system could come and take a look. it wasn't good news when I finally spoke to him, as he was unavailable for a week and a half due to a family illness and a very full appointments book. We also had a family wedding to participate in, and this served as a further distraction.

One morning, a couple of days after said event, I heard an anguished cry from Mrs PBT's in the bathroom, complaining that the water had run cold on her, whilst she was showering. I checked the tank, and it felt cold, and with no noises coming from the immersion, I assumed that the fuse had blown. We have a pack of fuses somewhere in the house, but rather than turn the place upside down looking for them, I nipped down into Tonbridge and bought a pack. Unfortunately, a replacement fuse didn’t rectify the situation, so the immersion heater must have packed up. It's not a feature we use much, especially because of cost reasons, but now our backup was gone, what were we to do for hot water?

There is a communal shower at my workplace, which meant I would be OK, but it would have been impractical for Mrs PBT’s.  A chat with our maintenance man at work revealed that because the boiler was capable of providing heating but no hot water, the motorised valve that diverts hot water into the tank must have failed. I subsequently discovered that by opening this valve manually, we were able to direct hot water from the boiler, straight into the tank. Problem solved, for the time being, a happy Mrs PBT’s and a rather relieved Paul – as it was my fault, according to her that she’d endured a cold shower!

Cutting a long story short, I decided to circumvent our normal heating engineer and contacted a plumber who has carried out plumbing work for the company, in the past. It transpired that he was busy on a commercial job in London, but he put me in touch with a young lad who had served his apprenticeship under him. This pleasant young man came round couple of days later and fitted a replacement motorised valve.

I appreciate this has been a rather long and convoluted post, so well done to all those who have stuck it out so far, but the biggest downside to this tale was the time taken to solve the issue. This was valuable, irreplaceable time, which could have been spent visiting pubs, trying new beers and even writing about them, rather than trying to organise ways and means of restoring our hot water supply. Unfortunately, tradesmen, such as plumbers, seem few and far between at the moment, especially when it comes to their availability.

I'm sure it's because there aren't many coming up through the ranks, so to speak, as being a plumber or an electrician doesn't carry the same sort of kudos with the youngsters that working in other, more "glamorous" occupations does. Instead, they want to write programmes for computer games, or be “influencers”, whatever that means. They certainly don't want to roll up their sleeves and get their hands, dirty crawling around in tight confined spaces, such as lofts or under sinks.

It wasn’t just the wasted time that I found annoying, the whole episode was quite stressful as well, a feeling induced by feelings of helplessness by being left at the mercy of tradesmen with more work on their hands they can handle.   

What was worse though, was the way Mrs PBT's blamed me for the situation, just because I’m the man of the house! If proof of this was needed, her assertion that sorting out issues such as heating and plumbing was a “blue job,” said it all. What do you mean by that?  I asked. She replied, “blue as opposed to pink.” Getting the gist of what she was saying, I told her that it was a very sexist thing to say, and if I'd made such an assertion, I would have been in all sorts of trouble. Apparently, it’s quite a common thing to say, in some relationships, although you’d need to be a brave individual to raise it, in certain situations.  

That’s more than enough on what ought to be a minor consideration, a first world problem, if you like, but it’s not entirely over, as at the weekend, Matthew’s en suite shower gave up the ghost. The nice young lad I mentioned earlier, is coming to take a look at it, once he is back from holiday, but in the meantime, bear in mind that these things are sent to try us, irrespective of what colour they purport to be!