Frustration

Spent a long weekend in the chalet and got very dusty tired and frustrated about the whole thing. Managed to get the big heater swapped in the store for another one quite easily, bought a load of other bits and pieces.

When I arrived the water was still frozen, no surprise there. So I hung the door and turned the heater on. The next morning I was surprised to find that the water had thawed enough to flow and fill my pipes. All was well the joints all held up. I was just trying to fill the hot water tank when I noticed a small arrow pointing the wrong way. After a quick study of the diagram I find that although I have installed all the bits as per the drawing, the drawing is in fact back to front and I need to swap it all about. The cold water is going in to the hot water outlet and the hot water supply was connected to the cold water inlet. Great to all those joints that were holding now have to moved about, undone and redone. So I spend most of the day under the hot water tank fiddling about with all the joints and the more you fiddle the worse all the other joints start to get. By the end of the day I was a little pissed off and needed bits! Saturday discovers that Vourons is now closed on Saturdays, great. OK the other store has some bits and after complex explanations and detailed examination of the existing bits I get some more bits and head home with the new knowledge that the kit you buy when you get a hot water heater is made up of specially sized screw threads and nuts that are very much non standard so that if any bit gets lost or breaks or needs replacing, you have to buy the whole kit again!

SO now Saturday lunch time and I decide to abandon the hot water for now as there is one leak I cant fix as I cant get the joint open, I need some stilsons which tighten up the harder you push on them. Any way I dont have any so it will have to wait. In the mean time I will make do with cold water. So I run the water up to the bathroom plumb in the toilet and bring the water up to sink. I fit the sink and the new sink tap fit the toilet, fit the trap under the sink fit the waste pipe for the sink, stop up all the loose ends open all the valves and hey presto we have running water.
Easy! Right!

So I can now wash my hands, its a bit cold but okay. My next discovery is a bit more serious. I have often wondered why the waste pipe for the toilet has never smelt at all of drains. Well today I found out. Its because that pipe is not actually connected to the sewer. It is only connected to the storm drain for rain water. Fantastic. After all this time I finally connect up the toilet and it is still unusable.

Bugger. I really dont know how to fix this. Major surgery required outside with a digger and pipes and fun for everyone. May be I could run the pipe out side and connect up somehow at the drain, I really do not know what to do about it.

So I get on with some electrics. Something else to mess up. I wire up the sockets in the Salon, about 5 sockets in all all chained together and really hard to get the wires up through the gaine and into the sockets. The plastic surround things will not clip in properly and stick out on one corner.
With this wiring done I could put some floor down. So down goes 2 layers of 50mm blue insulation, loads of it, I have to carve it up around the cables on the floor but it goes down all right.

Sorry no photos as the big disk drive here at home appears to have failed and I cant get to any of my music or photos. (that will be a disaster if I cant get it working)

Came home to noisy children, a loving wife and a long hot bath. Feel frustrated and annoyed at French builders and French building supplies.

Underfloor embarrassment

I have recently ordered the underfloor heating from an English company. Put the purchase on my French debit card and made sure the money was in the account. Great.

Heard back from Rayotec last week, The delivery is on its way but your card was refused. Oh no not again more trouble ! OK shot off an email to the bank, turns out there is a 1200 Euro limit on the card (that can not be changed) my heating was 1522.75 GBP !

So now, a little embarrassed I have to work out how to pay Rayotec there money. They are very nice about it and have even dispatched the 2 boxes to me here in Switzerland, but still its a bit embarrassing.

This is not the first time either. It seems like when ever I try to buy something slightly out of the ordinary something weird happens to mess it up. God knows what will happen when I want to buy my kitchen !