The background to the saga is that on Monday 30th November, the combi boiler which had been producing domestic hot water for the flat I rent suddenly decided to stop working when I turned the shower on first thing in the morning. No more hot water.
I tried resetting it. Several times. But it made no difference. The yellow light which means that the boiler is firing didn't come on, and the red light which means that the boiler has crashed did.
I tried again in the evening. It still didn't work.
So the following morning (Tuesday 2nd December) I reported the problem to my landlord. What with general delays and an awkwardly-placed bank holiday, it wasn't until the afternoon of Wednesday 9th December that the boiler guy turned up to look at it.
Wednesday 9th December
The boiler maintenance guy showed up.
I tried to explain to him, in my limited Castilian, that although I didn't really need the boiler for space heating as I had a backup heater, I really did need it for hot water ASAP.
I am not sure that he got the message, because he insisted that I turn on all of the radiators in the flat, including the one in the third bedroom, which I use as a box room.
While I was busy turning on radiators, he fiddled with the boiler. I didn't get a chance to see what it was that he did, except that it didn't involve opening the box. Whatever it was, it got the boiler working.
It also got all but one of the radiators working. One, the towel rail next to the shower, didn't warm up. He bled the air out of it (in Spain, this seems to be regarded as a technical operation, performed by professionals, rather than something which the householder does), and that warmed up too.
While he was doing that, I checked that all of the taps now produced hot water. It took some of them a while to get going, but eventually they all did.
Satisfied that the job was done, the boiler guy produced a printout to show that the boiler had been checked, and got the landlord to sign a copy of it.
After everyone had left, I turned the radiators in the second and third bedrooms off, leaving those in the living room, the main bedroom and the bathroom on. I also turned the thermostat down from 21°C (rather warm for me) to a more comfortable 18.5°C.
The boiler worked properly for the rest of the evening. I turned the central heating off when I went to bed.
Thursday 10th December
When I got up, I went to take a shower.
No hot water.
I went out to the galeria, where the boiler lives. The red light was on - it had crashed again.
I reset it. This time, it came on properly, and I went back to the bathroom and had my shower.
In the evening, I returned to the flat around 8pm, by which time it was already rather chilly. I switched the central heating on. The boiler fired up properly, and the central heating worked as it should. I turned the central heating off when I went to bed.
Friday 11th December
When I got up, I went to take a shower. You can see it coming, can't you?
No hot water.
I went out to the galeria. The red light was on - the boiler had crashed yet again. I reset it.
Then I went back to the bathroom and had my shower.
In the evening, I returned to the flat around 6pm. I switched the central heating on. The boiler fired up properly, and the central heating worked as it should for the rest of the evening. I turned the central heating off when I went to bed.
Saturday 12th December
I don't get up early at weekends, and by the time I did get up, the day was already warm enough. No heating needed. I didn't check the boiler.
During the middle of the day, I had shopping to do. In particular, I was looking for a plastic plumbing joint to fix a sink which isn't working properly (I took the sink plumbing apart to unblock the sink, and it wouldn't fit together again once I had finished). I didn't find what I was looking for.
With the rest shopping completed, I returned to the flat around 4pm, and switched the central heating on. The boiler came on as it should.
Later in the evening, the heating went off. I blamed the boiler and went to bed. In fact, though, later investigation suggests that the problem was the thermostat, which was mendaciously insisting that the temperature inside the flat was 18.5°C even though it clearly wasn't.
Sunday 13th December
I didn't get up early on Sunday either, but when I did the flat was still rather chilly. The day was cool and very wet, a typical Welsh winter day but rather an oddity for the east coast of Spain.
I went to the galeria to reset the boiler and discovered, rather to my surprise, that it hadn't crashed at all. Then I went to the thermostat to turn the central heating on. Then I went back to the boiler. It had crashed. I reset it, and it crashed again.
I went away, and returned after five minutes, and reset it again. This time it came on.
The heating remained on, without any problems, for the rest of the day and well into the evening. It went off some time after 9pm. It wasn't the boiler, which was still running. It was the thermostat, which once again was insisting that the temperature in the flat was 18.5°C.
I turned the thermostat up to 19°C. The central heating came on again.
It remained on for the best part of an hour. Then the boiler crashed.
I reset the boiler. The central heating came on again, and remained on for the rest of the evening. I turned it off when I went to bed.
Monday 14th December
Monday was a chilly day, not as wet as Sunday but with a strong northerly wind blowing cold air down from the Pyrenees (it snowed in Barcelona, and we could see snow on the hills around Castellon).
I tried switching the central heating on. Nothing happened.
The boiler had crashed again. I reset it. It crashed again. I reset it a second time. I crashed again. I gave up.
I waited for a gap in the rain, and came into the office.
Apparently, the particular type of boiler I have, a Roca Victoria 20/20 T, is known to be especially unreliable. Word has got out in Spain (people here now buy French or German boilers), so the manufacturers sell them abroad instead, including to the UK. This means that there is an English-language manual for them. I found it online as a PDF file here.
A few things stand out.
Firstly, it is marketed in the UK as an indoor boiler. The illustrative installation on page four shows it installed in a kitchen. Outdoors, on the galeria, it worked perfectly well in Spanish weather conditions (warm and generally dry), but given a day or two of Welsh weather (cold and wet) it gave up the ghost.
Secondly, the thermostat problem isn't a bug, it is a feature. If I understand the manual correctly, the boiler should switch off 30 seconds after the indoor temperature reaches the thermostat setting, and only switch on 30 seconds after the indoor temperature drops below 17°C, regardless of what temperature the thermostat is set to. In a top floor flat, the thermostat (mounted near the door, in the centre of the building) might hover just above 17°C for hours on end, while the rest of the flat gets colder and colder.
Thirdly, when the boiler crashes, the temperature lights which come on at the same time are not purely decorative. They constitute an error code. I haven't noted down which lights came on, so I am not sure which error is being reported, but my suspicion is that it is Faulty Safety Circuit. This does not sound good for a boiler which supposedly passed a safety test only five days previously.
I arrived back at the flat cold and damp. I didn't waste time trying to get the boiler to work, but instead went for technology I could trust, a good old-fashioned electric fan heater (which is also more efficient than gas-fired boilers if all you want to do is heat a single room).
Two hours later (around 8pm), once I was warm and dry, I braved the elements again to check the error code on the boiler. It was 40-70-90.
I also made a token attempt to get the central heating working again. I tried a trick which has been suggested: set one of the taps running, and then reset the boiler. The theory is presumably that the boiler knows that there is an immediate demand for hot water, and attempts to service it rather than tie itself in knots. It didn't work. The boiler crashed immediately I reset it, with the same error code, 40-70-90.
For the rest of the evening, I used the fan heater to keep the main bedroom warm.
Tuesday 15th December
Today was warmer and dry, so I didn't need space heating anyway, although I could do with domestic hot water. I made one token attempt to reset the boiler. It crashed immediately I turned the central heating on, still with the same error code, 40-70-90.
I tried taking a photograph of the boiler front panel, as a web page of this length without any pictures could get boring, but the LEDs do not show up on the photo. Possibly there is a technical reason for this (or possibly I just need to point the camera directly at the LEDs).
In the office, I checked the error code. 40-70-90 isn't Faulty Safety Circuit (which is 40-60-90), it is Faulty Safety Relay (energised). According to the manual, when the Faulty Safety Relay (energised) fault occurs, the boiler will reset itself automatically when the fault clears. In practice, it never does.
This contradicts what the boiler maintenance guy said, which was that when the red light appeared, I should reset the boiler manually.
There is a similar error code, 40-60-70-90, Safety Relay. Ignition Time-delay too long, which would correspond to my initial impressions about what was wrong with the boiler (the electric ignition did not seem to be firing properly in wet, windy weather). But this would be a double-fault condition (the 60 LED would also have to be broken), and it is another of the faults which supposedly clears itself, so I think I can rule it out.
I got back to the flat some time after 6pm. As is typical of Castellón in the second half of December, the day was pleasantly warm, but the night gets rather chilly. I used the fan heater to warm the main bedroom.
I tried resetting the boiler. It was happy to reset, and remained reset as long as I didn't try using it for anything. As soon as I left a tap running for more than ten seconds, the boiler crashed.
Wednesday 16th December
A cloudy, chilly morning but a very pleasant afternoon with clear, sunny skies. The clear skies mean that the night will probably be chilly again, though.
I made one token attempt at resetting the boiler. It reset, but crashed as soon as I let a tap run for any length of time.
I did manage to get a reasonably decent photo of the LEDs this time, though. It seems that, although the human eye can see the LEDs from a reasonably wide angle, the camera has to be pointed straight at them for them to register.
Now that I have photographic evidence, I have let my landlord know that the boiler has broken down again.
I got back to the flat around 6pm. Nothing new to report. I tried resetting the boiler. It remained on until I let a tap run for any length of time, at which point it crashed.
I used the fan heater to heat the bedroom. Maybe I shall buy another fan heater for the living room, as the forecast is for a cold weekend.
Thursday 17th December
Again, nothing new. Just to see what would happen, I reset the boiler just before leaving the flat, in the expectation that, without any demand for heat, it will not crash until I return this evening.
My landlord has replied. He is in Hong Kong for the week. He gave me the phone number of Gas Natural, and assured me that if they couldn't fix things he would look into it when he gets back.
I had expected that the language barrier would be a problem when making phone calls, but it turned out not to be. The problem is something else entirely.
The phone number turned out to be the phone number for bills. The phone number for fixing faults (called servigas) is different.
So I rang the phone number for servigas. The first problem was that they wanted a maintenance contract number. I don't have that - my landlord has it. They can't look up the landlord by name - their computer system doesn't work like that. I was about to ring off when the servigas guy added that they could look up an address. So I gave the address, the servigas guy gave a wrong name for the landlord (presumably as some sort of check) and I said that was wrong and gave the right name, and he accepted that I was who I claimed to be and put the call on hold for a minute while he looked things up.
Having looked things up, he said that servigas couldn't do anything. The pressure gauge on the boiler is broken. Everyone agrees that the pressure gauge is broken - this is not in dispute. Apparently, this means that the servigas maintenance contract has been deactivated, and will not be reactivated until the broken pressure gauge is replaced.
Basically, they can't fix the boiler, because it is broken. Only if it wasn't broken would they be able to fix it.
I e-mailed my landlord, informing him of this interesting take on reality.
I returned to the flat around 8pm. Nothing new. The boiler was, as expected, still running, as there had been no demand for heat while I was out. As soon as I switched the central heating on, the boiler crashed.
Friday 18th December
Again, nothing new. I had noticed that the boiler makes a noise when I reset it, so I tried leaving the reset dial in the reset position until the noise stopped before turning it back. I didn't really expect this to make any difference, and I was right - it didn't. As soon as I let a tap run, the boiler crashed.
The landlord's reply was to ask servigas whether they could send someone to fix the pressure gauge. It was written using subjunctives. That might be because the Spanish like subjunctives, or it might be because he knew what the answer would be.
I rang anyway, and got the expected answer. No, servigas only send people to addresses for which there is an active servigas contract. Yes, as soon as the pressure gauge is fixed (by someone else), the contract can be reactivated, but no, they cannot fix the pressure gauge themselves, not even if one offers to pay them to do so.
Impressively, the servigas guy switched to English for the second half of the conversation, and spoke it better than I speak Castilian. If the same situation were to happen in Britain, I am not even sure that the guy in the call centre would recognise a foreign accent, let alone be able to switch to the caller's native language. But the story remained the same. The maintenance contract can be reactivated, and the real problem with the boiler fixed, only after the pressure gauge has been fixed, and the pressure gauge must be fixed by someone else.
He also provided me with the phone number of the maintenance department of Roca (the manufacturers). Again, I cannot really imagine a guy in a British call centre doing that, so Spain is still somewhat ahead.
But the lady answering telephone calls for Roca said that everyone had gone home. It was, after all, Friday afternoon. On Fridays, one takes a late lunch and does not return to work afterwards. I would have to ring back on Monday.
I e-mailed the landlord to let him know what is happening. Essentially, that amounts to nothing until I ring Roca again on Monday.
Saturday 19th December
No developments concerning the boiler. In any case, Saturday was bright and sunny, so there was no need for heating during the day.
However, the ongoing business of the sink is worth reporting.
Following advice, I went to a shop called Leroy Merlin, located in the so-called Transport City on the outskirts of Castellon. It is a walk of about half an hour from my flat.
Although it looks like a warehouse, it is in fact a sort of department store. I found the plumbing department without any trouble.
But I couldn't see what I wanted, so I asked. The first person I asked said she couldn't help, but directed me to the plumbing specialist, who said she would get back to me.
When she did get back to me, she picked out a part, costing 3.36 euros. It didn't look right to me, and I pointed to my photograph (below) to explain why it wasn't right. She said it was right. I said it wasn't, pointing again at the photograph. She opened the box to explain how the part really was what I wanted and how I should fit it, saying that the screw thread on the bottom of the part could fit into the screw cap on the top of the trap.
So I paid the 3.36 euros and bought the part.
(I also tried to call into Media Markt, next door to Leroy Merlin, but was refused admission. The two companies must hate one another, as Media Markt will not admit anyone carrying a Leroy Merlin bag. Media Markt's advertising slogan is I am not stupid, but the reality is that they are - no-one is going to go all the way to Transport City just to shop in Media Markt when it is cheaper to buy on-line. But I digress.)
When I got back to the flat, I tried to fit the part, and discovered that I had been right all along. It wouldn't fit. The screw cap has a lip which prevents anything with a screw thread from being inserted from above.
According to Spanish law, for 15 days from the day of purchase I have the right to return the part and get my money back. But taking 90 minutes and walking six kilometres to recover 3.36 euros is hardly worth the effort. I shall keep the part and make a note never to shop in Leroy Merlin again. (Perhaps Media Markt were right after all about not admitting Leroy Merlin customers. A plague on both their houses.)
The day was not entirely wasted, though. Later, I went to one of the Chinese bazares and bought a fan heater. It is the same make as the one I already had, but a newer and slightly quieter model. It cost 19.50 euros and worked straight out of the box.
And it came in very useful, as, as is usual here, a bright, sunny day was followed by a clear, chilly night.
Sunday 20th December
Sunday was another bright, sunny day followed by another clear, chilly evening. Nothing new happened.
Monday 21st December
Monday was a cold, overcast day with a feeling of snow somewhere not too far away.
When I tried to ring Roca's technical department to ask whether they could replace the pressure gauge on the boiler, they gave me the run-around. Either their telephone system is on the blink, or they had all returned drunk from their Christmas party. Every time I tried to explain the problem, they listened for about five seconds, then the phone would beep and I would be passed on to someone else. Eventually, I got fed up with this and rang off.
I e-mailed my landlord to thank him and accept his offer of assistance when he returns on Wednesday from his travels abroad.
Monday evening was also chilly.
Tuesday 22nd December
Tuesday was wet, with persistent light drizzle and occasional showers, but not especially cold during the day.
Nothing new happened.
Wednesday 23rd December
Wednesday morning was wet, with quite heavy rain, but the sun came out around midday and the afternoon was bright and warmish.
Nothing new happened.
Thursday 24th December
Thursday morning was wet and overcast, with intermittent showers, but again the sun came out shortly after midday and the afternoon was bright and warmish.
Nothing new happened.
Friday 25th December
Overcast all day. Nothing new happened.
Saturday 26th December
Damp all day, with occasional showers. Nothing new happened.
Sunday 27th December
Sunny. Nothing new happened.
Monday 28th December
Overcast but dry. Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 29th December
Overcast but dry in the morning, some heavy showers in the afternoon and evening. Nothing new happened.
Wednesday 30th December
Sunny, with the daytime temperature above the magic 15.5°C beyond which indoor heating is no longer required.
The landlord e-mailed back with a phone number and address for a local branch of Roca's technical service department. I had my suspicions about the number - it only had eight digits, and local telephone numbers have nine. But the address is very convenient, close to the back door of my local branch of Mercadona.
I decided to turn up in person on Thursday morning.
Thursday 31st December
Another sunny day, with the daytime temperature above 15.5°C. Oddly, the city centre is covered with grey cloud, but elsewhere there is blue sky in all directions.
More in hope than expectation, I tried resetting the boiler so as to have up-to-date information for Roca when I called on them. When I turned the tap on, I could hear the electronic ignition trying to fire. That usually happens, but it sounded as if it was trying harder this time. And it succeeded. The yellow LED came on, the red LED stayed off, and, for the first time in over a fortnight, I now have hot water.
As I had to go shopping anyway in preparation for the bank holiday tomorrow, I called on Roca anyway. After all, the pressure gauge needs to be fixed in order to reactivate the maintenance contract, regardless of whether the boiler is currently working or not.
I was right about the telephone number. There is a digit missing from the number my landlord gave me. The real number has a 0 in the middle which he had left out.
The young lady on the desk listened to my story and took my details. The Spanish love of record-keeping worked to my advantage here, as she still had the record of selling the boiler on her computer, so she knew immediately what make it was. Well, almost immediately. She couldn't find it by address, but could find it given my landlord's name and both surnames. Unlike every other computer in Spain, which lists my address as "Floor 4 Flat 14", the Roca computer just lists "Flat 14H". I have no idea what the "H" means.
The young lady asked around. Roca did not have a replacement part in stock. Maybe next week, or maybe the week after. As the boiler is currently working, that is not so much of a problem. She said she would ring me when the replacement part arrived - could she have my telephone number? Of course, I couldn't remember it - who uses telephones nowadays? Doesn't everyone use e-mail instead?
So I came into the office (as I would have done anyway given the beautiful weather outside the city centre), checked my telephone number, phoned Roca, got through to a different young lady who wasn't up with the story, and eventually she offered to note down my telephone number and pass it on to the first young lady.
Friday 1st January
A bank holiday. Overcast. Nothing new happened.
Saturday 2nd January
Overcast. Most of the shops were open today. The exception was one called Suministros Valls, located in the Avenida de Almazora (or, alternatively, the Avinguda d'Almassora, depending on which version of Spanish you speak), which was closed all day.
I was advised that it might have the part I need to get the bathroom sink working again. Maybe it does, but it won't sell me one if it is shut.
That apart, nothing new happened.
Sunday 3rd January
Clear and sunny, but still not warm. Everything shut. Nothing new happened.
Monday 4th January
Back to work. Overcast with occasional showers. Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 5th January
Overcast with occasional showers. Nothing new happened about my problems, but I am not the only one without central heating.
A colleague of mine used to have a Roca Victoria 20/20 T just like mine. A few years ago, it broke down, and he had it replaced by a French boiler. However, he kept the original Roca thermostat.
Over the Christmas break, the thermostat's batteries ran out, and he replaced them. The thermostat would not work with new batteries.
Thinking he had done something wrong, he took the thermostat to the Roca shop, the same one as I went to, around the back of my local branch of Mercadona. The young lady there (quite possibly the same one as spoke to me) said that the thermostat needed resetting, and resetting it was simple, and offered to do it there and then.
So he handed her the thermostat, and she changed her story. Most thermostats can be reset, she said, but not that particular model. In that particular model, the entire program, including the reset program, is in main memory. When you remove the batteries, everything in main memory, including the reset program, is lost. Once the original batteries fail, you cannot reset it. You no longer have a thermostat, you have an art object.
My colleague is looking for a replacement thermostat. Needless to say, he is not considering Roca as a potential manufacturer.
Wednesday 6th January
Bank holiday. Everything shut. Nothing new happened.
Thursday 7th January
It rained all day. I mean all day, without pause. There were times when the rain wasn't quite as heavy as other times, but it never stopped.
Following Spanish custom, I treated the day as a "bridge". So did most other people.
Nothing new happened.
Friday 8th January
Overcast and chilly, but dry.
However, there is snow in most of the rest of Spain. Almost the entire
country, from Zaragoza to Cadiz, is covered in snow. It only missed Castellon
by four or five kilometres, as you can see from the photo.
Saturday 9th January
Even more snow in most of the rest of Spain. Some of the towns in the hinterland of Castellon province are cut off.
Nothing new happened.
Sunday 10th January
Even more snow in most of the rest of Spain. Nothing new happened.
Monday 11th January
Today was cool but dry, and the snow on the mountains to the north of Castellon has cleared.
I went back to Suministros Valls to see if they were open. They were.
The main showroom sells fitted bathrooms. I asked if they had another department. The lady on the door said they did not. So did the lady selling fitted bathrooms.
So I went around to the back of the block and looked for myself. Next to the car park, however much they might like to deny it, there was indeed another department, which supposedly sells only to professionals.
There was even a list of professionals to whom they sell. I couldn't see software engineer listed anywhere. However, after due consideration, I concluded that my CEng entitles me to consider myself a professional, so I went in anyway.
The guy there did, after a while, understand that what I wanted was not a new sink trap, but a connector to connect my existing sink trap to the sink. He even showed me the sort of thing they have for that purpose. The trouble was, it was too long. I want something three or four centimetres long, not fifteen or twenty. He suggested cutting it to length. That would probably have been a good solution, except that I do not have a saw. When you rent a furnished flat, do you expect the furniture to include a saw?
So still no solution to the sink trap problem either.
Tuesday 12th January
Dry, and not as cold as previous days.
As well as not being furnished with a saw, my flat is not furnished with a kettle. In the past, that has not been a problem, as I prefer cold tea with lemon to hot tea with milk, and do not much like coffee at all.
However, in the continued absence of domestic hot water, I decided that I need a kettle. So I went back to the Chinese bazar to try to buy a kettle.
I even looked up the Spanish word for kettle. My dictionary gives hervidor. (Curiously, Babelfish gives caldera, which actually means combi boiler.)
However, the girl in the bazar did not seem to understand hervidor. She even seemed dubious about the entire concept of using electricity to heat water. When she did get the idea, she tried to sell me an electric coffee maker.
Opposite the electric coffee makers, they had old-fashioned granny kettles, the sort you put on gas stoves. I pointed to those, and said that I wanted one which used electricity.
She pointed to the box the granny kettles come in, and (quite correctly, if entirely irrelevantly) said that you could put them on electric stoves as well as on gas stoves.
I said that that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted a kettle with the electricity cord built in. She looked at me in horror, as if I were Osama bin Laden asking for a bomb.
All I wanted was a bog standard electric kettle. And that seems to be the problem. You can't get British-or-German Standard Electric Kettles in Spain, for the fairly obvious reason that Spain is not Britain or Germany. They don't use them here, and, judging by the response I got, anyone even asking for one could be deported for un-Spanish activities.
Wednesday 13th January
Today was the first warm day for a while. I tried to reset the boiler. It crashed as soon as I ran a tap for any length of time.
I went to El Corte Ingles, an up-market department store not far from where I live, to see if they had electric kettles.
They had electric coffee makers. They had granny kettles. In between, where you would expect to find electric kettles, they had electric lemon squeezers.
But no electric kettles.
According to Wikipedia, the electric kettle was invented in 1949. It still hasn't reached Spain. They have electric coffee makers and even electric lemon squeezers, but not electric kettles.
The weather changed during the day. Although it was warm and sunny in the morning, it rained in the afternoon and evening. The night was chilly, as is normal for the time of year.
Thursday 14th January
Another warm and sunny morning, but with very strong winds.
I tried resetting the boiler again. This time, I listened to it after I switched a tap on. Audibly, it wasn't trying very hard to fire up, and crashed after a few seconds.
The strong winds continued all day and well into the night. Although it was cloudy in the afternoon and evening, the threatened rain didn't fall. The night was chilly.
Friday 15th January
Warm and sunny, and the winds have dropped.
I tried resetting the boiler again, and listened to it after I switched a tap on. This time it didn't even make a token attempt to fire up, and crashed straight away.
At last, a victory against the system! In the evening, I went back to El Corte Ingles. Could it really be that they had no electric kettles?
It turns out that I had been looking in the wrong place. I had been looking in the racks of kitchen essentials, things like electric coffee makers, electric lemon squeezers and electric wine chillers.
Hidden well away from those, amongst the rows of kitchen odds and ends, there were indeed kettles. An entire row of them!
Most of them were two-litre kettles, priced at 45 euros. That may seem expensive, but recall that they have to be specially imported from Germany, where kettle use is the norm.
And, right on the end of the row, there was a cute half-litre kettle priced at 19 euros which meets my requirements exactly. I bought one of those.
I may, in due course, go back for one of the larger kettles. One never knows when one might need one. However, for the time being, the domestic hot water problem is sorted.
Saturday 16th January
Dry but not all that warm. Nothing new happened.
Sunday 17th January
Sunny for most of the day.
In the afternoon, I made a token attempt to reset the boiler and get it to fire up, listening to what it was doing after I turned a tap on. The electronic ignition made much more of an attempt to ignite than it did on Friday, but still didn't succeed.
Monday 18th January
Persistent drizzle in the morning, and dry but not especially warm in the afternoon. Nothing new happened.
The kettle is proving to be useful. There is a brand of lemon drink here called Limon+Nada, supposedly on the grounds that it contains lemon and nothing else (except, of course, for the sugars, ascorbic acid and beta carotene, which for some reason don't count). Dishonest as it is, when mixed half-and-half with boiling water, it makes a very nice warm lemon drink.
Tuesday 19th January
Damp and not especially warm, but the forecast rain never turned up.
I discovered that I am not the only one having trouble with a combi boiler here. Someone else who also owns a Roca Victoria 20/20 is having similar problems. What he has discovered is that if he tries repeatedly to reset his boiler, it usually fires up at the fourth or fifth attempt.
I must admit that I don't have the patience to try this.
The prevailing theory is that, when this brand of boiler gets old, the pressure sensor becomes unduly sensitive. Even the slightest drop in pressure (as might be caused by a cold day or by everyone staying at home on a bank holiday and using a lot of gas) triggers the pressure sensor, and the safety circuit decides that there isn't enough gas to continue and switches the boiler off.
Wednesday 20th January
Sunny and warm, the first day this year to hit 20°C. The evening was cool but not chilly. Nothing new happened.
Thursday 21st January
A very pleasant day, not as warm as yesterday, with a gentle breeze and traces of thin white cloud. Nothing new happened.
Friday 22nd January
Another very pleasant day, with a clearer sky than yesterday. Nothing new happened.
Saturday 23rd January
Cooler and overcast.
I tried resetting the boiler, running a tap, and then, when the boiler crashed, resetting it while leaving the tap running. All that happened was that the boiler crashed again.
Sunday 24th January
Cooler still and overcast. Nothing new happened.
Monday 25th January
Cooler still - temperatures back in single figures - and persistent drizzle. Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 26th January
Dry, with sunny intervals, but still not warm as there is a stiff northerly breeze. Nothing new happened.
Wednesday 27th January
In the morning, cold drizzle, blown down from the north. The afternoon was sunny. Nothing new happened.
Thursday 28th January
A pleasant sunny day, if still on the cool side. Nothing new happened.
Friday 29th January
A beautiful sunny day, neither too warm nor too cool, and with a gentle breeze. Nothing new happened.
Saturday 30th January
Another sunny day, slightly on the cool side as the breeze was stronger. Nothing new happened.
Sunday 31st January
Colder and overcast in the morning, with intermittent showers in the afternoon. Nothing new happened.
Monday 1st February
A chilly night, as is normal for the time of year, followed by a beautiful sunny day, also normal for the time of year. Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 2nd February
Cooler in the morning, with white cloud, but a beautiful afternoon. Nothing new happened.
Wednesday 3rd February
Another beautiful day. Nothing new happened.
Thursday 4th February
It rained heavily all morning and into the afternoon. The rain stopped around 2pm, but the air remained damp. It was also colder than earlier in the week. Nothing new happened.
Friday 5th February
A warm day, over 20°C. The air was still damp in the morning, but dried out in the afternoon.
In fact, it was not only warm enough for British central heating to be switched off - except for occasional days, it has been warm enough for that for some weeks now, as the threshold is 15.5°C. It is even warm enough now for American central heating to be switched off, as their threshold is 20.5°C. But not in Spain - the central heating in public buildings such as shops and banks is still on full blast, making them genuinely unpleasant to be inside.
Nothing new happened.
Saturday 6th February
Another warm day. For want of anything better to do, I tried resetting the boiler around 4 pm, and it fired up first time. However, when I actually wanted it for something, switching the central heating on at 9:30 pm, it crashed.
Sunday 7th February
Slightly cooler, with white cloud overhead. I tried resetting the boiler at 11 am, and it crashed. I tried again at midday, and this time it fired up, and came up with enough hot water to fill a bath.
However, when I wanted to do the washing up at around 5 pm, it decided that working twice in one day was too much, and crashed.
Monday 8th February
Cooler still, with rain forecast. Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 9th February
Dry, not especially warm. Nothing new happened.
Wednesday 10th February
Dry, not especially warm. Nothing new happened.
Thursday 11th February
Dry, not especially warm, and with a cold wind. Rain was threatened but did not arrive. Sub-zero temperatures overnight, if only by a fraction of a degree, made it officially the coldest night of the year. Nothing new happened.
Friday 12th February
Dry, not especially warm. Nothing new happened.
Saturday 13th February
White cloud, but dry. The day was rather chilly. I tried resetting the boiler once, in the early afternoon. It crashed straight away.
Sunday 14th February
Sunny, but still rather chilly. I tried resetting the boiler four times in all, at about hourly intervals, from late morning until mid-afternoon. It crashed straight away every time.
Monday 15th February
Cold, with grey cloud and intermittent drizzle in the morning turning to rain in the afternoon. Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 16th February
Cold, with grey cloud and intermittent drizzle in the morning. The drizzle died out gradually in the afternoon, but the air remained damp. Nothing new happened.
Wednesday 17th February
Dry, not especially warm. Nothing new happened.
Thursday 18th February
Sunny in the morning, but rain in the afternoon. Nothing new happened.
Friday 19th February
Sunny again in the morning, a very pleasant day. Nothing new happened.
Saturday 20th February
Sunny, but not especially warm. I tried resetting the boiler once, around midday, and it crashed straight away. The thermostat was reading 14°C at the time.
Sunday 21st February
Again, sunny, but not especially warm. I tried resetting the boiler four times, at various intervals, around midday, and each time it crashed straight away. The thermostat read 14°C for most of the day.
Monday 22nd February
Cloudy and rather muggy in the morning, clearing around midday, and a beautiful sunny afternoon. Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 23rd February
A very pleasant day. Nothing new happened. Overnight temperatures remained in double figures for the first time this year.
Wednesday 24th February
A very pleasant day. Nothing new happened.
Thursday 25th February
A cloudy, windy, comparatively cold day, but the forecast rain never appeared. Nothing new happened.
Friday 26th February
Today was a university holiday, and was bright and sunny. I tried resetting the boiler at around midday, and it fired up first time. I was able to run enough hot water to fill a bath.
The boiler must have crashed at some time in the evening or overnight.
During the day, I went shopping, and amongst other things I bought a USB mouse for 8 euros. This isn't relevant to the saga of the boiler, or even to the saga of the sink trap. It is just a short sub-plot.
Saturday 27th February
Like Thursday, today was a cloudy, windy and comparatively cool day, although again the forecast rain never appeared.
I tried resetting the boiler around midday, and it crashed immediately. The indoor temperature, as measured by the thermostat near the door, was 16.5°C.
During the evening, my existing USB mouse, which I use with a notebook computer, started glitching. Previously, there had been nothing wrong with it. I had bought a new mouse on Friday because it was cheap and because mice are inherently unreliable and always going wrong, not because I thought I would be needing one in the next few days. But almost as soon as the new mouse came in the door, the old one (not that old - nearly ten months) started to glitch. How do they know?
Sunday 28th February
Another very pleasant sunny day.
I tried resetting the boiler around midday, and it crashed. The indoor temperature, as measured by the thermostat near the door, was 17°C.
So I tried again. This time, it fired up, and I was able to run enough hot water to fill a bath.
However, when, in the late afternoon, I tried doing the washing up, the boiler crashed again.
Monday 1st March
Another very pleasant sunny day. Usually, by March, daytime temperatures are starting to become uncomfortably warm, but today was still in the low twenties. Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 2nd March
Coolish, overcast and damp. Rain was forecast, but didn't show up until the evening, by which time I was safely back in the flat. Nothing new happened.
Wednesday 3rd March
The rain stopped for a while overnight, but had started up again by morning. It died down gradually - by midday, it was only drizzle, and by late afternoon it had stopped altogether. Nothing new happened.
Thursday 4th March
A really beautiful day, blue skies, sunny but not too warm, and a gentle breeze. Unless you're indoors in a bank or a shop, where they still have the heating on and it is horrible.
Friday 5th March
Coolish, overcast and damp. Rain was forecast, but didn't show up until the evening. I got home from work before the rain started, but got rained on when I went shopping later in the evening. Nothing new happened.
Saturday 6th March
Coolish and overcast. The indoor thermostat read 16°C around midday, and I tried resetting the boiler. It crashed straight away.
Sunday 7th March
Coolish and overcast again. The indoor thermostat read 16°C around midday, and I tried resetting the boiler. It crashed straight away.
Monday 8th March
Bright and sunny, and a very pleasant day, if not all that warm. The indoor thermostat read 15.5°C around midday. I tried resetting the boiler, and it crashed straight away.
Tuesday 9th March
Bright and sunny, but a rather chilly day with a strong wind coming down from the Pyrenees, where they have snow again. The indoor thermostat read 15°C around midday. I tried resetting the boiler three times at various intervals. The first time, it crashed straight away, but the second and third times it was audibly trying to start up and just didn't manage it.
The nighttime temperature was almost down to zero.
Wednesday 10th March
Still bright and sunny but with a chilly north wind. The indoor thermostat was now down to 14.5°C, and out of doors the temperature was barely into double figures.
Nothing new happened.
The nighttime temperature was again almost down to zero. This would be normal for January, but is unusual in March.
Thursday 11th March
Still bright and sunny, and the wind has dropped and changed direction. However, the indoor thermostat continues to drop and is now down to 14°C. Nothing new happened.
Friday 12th March
Still bright and sunny, but chilly at night. The indoor thermostat seems to be stuck at 14°C. Nothing new happened.
Saturday 13th March
Still bright and sunny, with the indoor thermostat still showing 14°C.
I tried resetting the boiler once, around midday. It crashed straight away.
Sunday 14th March
Still bright and sunny, with the indoor thermostat still showing 14°C.
I tried resetting the boiler three times at various intervals around midday. Each time, it crashed straight away.
Monday 15th March
Still bright and sunny, if slightly on the cool side thanks to a strong breeze, and a very pleasant day out of doors. Horrible in banks and shops, though, as they still have the central heating on.
Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 16th March
Still bright and sunny, and slightly warmer as the breeze has dropped.
Nothing new happened.
Wednesday 17th March
Still bright and sunny, and now slightly on the warm side of ideal as the breeze has changed direction and comes from the south. It is also less chilly at night - overnight temperatures still drop into single figures, but don't get anywhere near freezing.
Nothing new happened.
Thursday 18th March
Overcast, although the cloud is gradually clearing. Temperatures reasonable. Rain was forecast but has not shown up.
Nothing new happened.
Friday 19th March
Cool and overcast, with intermittent drizzle in the afternoon. Nevertheless, the indoor thermostat now read 15°C. I tried resetting the boiler once, and it crashed straight away.
Saturday 20th March
Thin cloud. The indoor thermostat had crept up to 15.5°C. I tried resetting the boiler three times at various intervals around midday. It crashed each time, but it was audibly attempting to fire up.
Sunday 21st March
Overcast but dry in the morning. With the thermostat at 16°C, I tried resetting the boiler, and it fired up, delivering enough hot water to run a bath.
However, two hours later, it started to rain, and the boiler crashed, even though the temperature remained unchanged.
Overnight temperatures are now staying in double figures, if only just.
Monday 22nd March
It continued to rain overnight. The morning was overcast, with no rain but very damp air. During the afternoon, the clouds thinned out and the air became less damp. The thermostat continues to creep upwards, now standing at 16.5°C.
Banks and shops still have their central heating on. Given how damp the air is, this makes them horrible to be inside.
The rain returned in the evening, and I got drizzled on while returning to the flat.
Nothing new happened.
Tuesday 23rd March
A warmer and drier day, although still overcast. The thermostat has now crept up to 17°C.
I tried resetting the boiler in the early evening, after returning to the flat. It crashed straight away.
Wednesday 24th March
Grey and gloomy in the morning, but clearing up in the afternoon. Despite the gloom, the thermostat has remained at 17°C.
I tried resetting the boiler in the early evening, after returning to the flat. Again, it crashed straight away.
Thursday 25th March
Intermittent cloud, warm and humid. The thermostat has remained at 17°C.
I tried resetting the boiler after returning to the flat, and this time it fired up. For the first time this year, I was able to run a bath in the evening after returning from the office.
The boiler crashed later in the evening.
Friday 26th March
Bright, sunny and warm.
... skip over April and May, during which nothing new happened - the boiler worked on sunny days but not on rainy days or after dark ...
For most of June, all of July, and the first half of August, the boiler worked perfectly. For most of this time, daytime temperatures were over 30°C, nighttime temperatures were between 25°C and 30°C, and there was not a cloud in the sky.
Friday 13th August
Friday evening saw the first heavy shower for several months. It also saw the boiler crash for the first time since the beginning of June. In fact, it crashed twice, once during the shower and then again after it had ended.
Monday 16th August
The boiler crashed again this morning. This was unexpected, as although the sky was overcast the day was dry and the temperature was around 27.5°C (according to the thermostat) or 26°C (according to a cheap, but probably more honest, thermometer).
Friday 20th August
Yesterday, the boiler survived two heavy storms, one in the morning and the other in the early evening.
However, this morning, when I tried to take a shower, the boiler crashed. The day was already bright and sunny, with temperatures well into the twenties.
Tuesday 7th September
Another inexplicable boiler crash. Yesterday, when I took a shower in the morning, the boiler fired up normally. This morning, it crashed. The time of day and the weather were the same - if anything, it is slightly warmer today than yesterday (forecast 31°C yesterday, 35°C today, actual temperature at the time 27.5°C according to the thermostat which reads slightly high).
From mid-September onwards, the boiler did not work at all.
December this year has been unusually cold. Some days follow the usual pattern - warm days, with temperatures in the twenties, but chilly nights. Some nights have been exceptionally chilly, even dipping below zero on occasions. But there has also been more rain than usual, and a lot of the days have been overcast, with daytime temperatures only just making it into double figures.
Tuesday 21st December
Today was the day of the official annual boiler inspection, as required by Spanish law. It is the first annual inspection we have had since I came here just over four years ago.
The official technician used some sort of sniffing gadget to search for gas leaks, and couldn't find any. So far, so good.
He then asked me to turn the hot tap on, and I did. He soon twigged that the boiler wasn't working, and signed a form to say so. I have passed the form on to my landlord. The important part seems to be that there is a legal requirement to get the boiler fixed and retested within six months.
What was interesting was that the official technician said that the pressure gauge, the one everyone else says is broken, is in fact reading correctly, and when it says there is no pressure in the system it is telling the truth.
This underlines the main reason for my hostility to combi boilers. The fundamental design is so badly wrong that when they break down (which they often do), the people called in to maintain them cannot even agree with one another what it is that is broken.
Not to worry. I have a kettle for hot water, and two fan heaters for space heating. That will be enough to get me through the winter, and I won't be spending another winter in Spain as my contract here ends at the end of November.
Monday 27th December
As I mentioned earlier, I have two fan heaters.
I initially thought that they were different models. It turns out that, although they behave differently, they are the same model - this seems to be typical of Spanish engineering, which has not quite caught up yet with twentieth-century ideas of quality control. The first one rattles for a while when it is switched on, and is still quite noisy even when it warms up. The second one is quieter but blows to the right rather than straight ahead. Both of them work quite well once one gets used to their quirks.
Fast forward for six months, skipping the weather reports, which you won't be interested in unless you are British.
Wednesday 8th June
I have managed quite well in the last six months without the combi boiler. However, the saga seems to be about to become live again.
Just over a week ago, we had a heat wave, with daytime temperatures up into the thirties. In retrospect, I should have taken the opportunity to check whether the boiler would start working again. I didn't, though. I have got so used to not using the boiler that it didn't occur to me.
Later in the week, the weather turned. We now have generally mild days, with daytime temperatures in the low to mid twenties. To keep things interesting, every three or four days, we have a thunderstorm.
The most recent thunderstorm was yesterday afternoon. I stayed in the office a bit longer than usual, waiting for it to pass.
Not long after I got back to the flat, my landlord's father called around. He is looking after his son's correspondence while his son is abroad, and had read the latest in a series of threatening letters from the gas company, all of which I had passed on. He was rather alarmed by their threat to cut the gas supply off. And understandably so. Although I don't need the boiler, I will be leaving the flat at the end of November, and prospective replacement tenants will expect to see a flat with a gas supply (and, if they are real optimists, a working boiler).
So I explained to him what the problem was: every time someone comes to look at the boiler, I get a different story. Some say the pressure gauge is broken. Some say the pressure gauge is working perfectly and the reason it reads zero is that there really is no pressure in the system. Another theory is that the electronics inside the boiler is broken, so the pressure signal doesn't get as far as the gauge.
Everyone except Roca, that is. Their story is entirely consistent. They always say that there is nothing they can do immediately, and that they will get back to me. And they never do.
He said he would have strong words with Roca.
It occurs to me that nowhere in this saga have I mentioned the previous saga of the Welsh Combi Boiler. It was so long ago that I can't remember all of the details, so I shall just give a brief overview.
Years ago, I used to live in a house in Wales with a good old-fashioned gas boiler which produced hot water, which could then be stored in a good old-fashioned tank for future use. It also produced hot water for the radiators. One of the particularly good points of it was that the radiator in the main bedroom was on the hot water circuit, not the radiator circuit, and the hot water tank was in the airing cupboard in the main bedroom. This meant that I could leave the hot water on all the time (so that it was controlled by a thermostat in the airing cupboard) and remain warm overnight, while using a timer for the radiator circuit so that the radiators in the rest of the house were only on for an hour or so in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening.
But all good things come to an end. Year after year, the guy who came out to service the boiler looked more and more suspiciously at it, and one year he said it couldn't be serviced any more and had to go. Apparently, some law had been passed, ostensibly as a safety measure, but the true purpose of which was to help out the British economy by selling more combi boilers.
The boiler servicing guy gave me a what sounded like a good quote for replacing the boiler and upgrading the system. So I went for it. That was a mistake.
Because he didn't just replace the old boiler with one of the new-fangled combi boilers. He also took the hot water tank away, on the spurious reasoning that, since combi boilers supposedly produce hot water on demand, the hot water tank was no longer needed.
(Incidentally, taking the hot water tank out meant that there were loose electical ends in the airing cupboard. I had to call an electrician out to rewire them to meet yet another safety standard passed by a government which was becoming increasingly desperate to keep British industry going. That wasn't included in the original quote. But that's another story.)
The new combi boiler didn't work. I phoned the guy who had installed it, and he said I was using it wrongly, and if I used it properly it would work.
Eventually, I got him to come out and check it. He tinkered with it for a while, said it was working, and left.
Except that it wasn't working. Once more, I phoned the guy who had installed it, and again he said I was using it wrongly, and if I used it properly it would work.
Eventually, I got him to come out and check it. He tinkered with it for a while, said it was working, and left.
Except that it wasn't working ...
... and eventually, after several more inspections and tinkerings, and fifteen months after the boiler had first been installed, he found that a plastic tube which ought to have been connected to a valve was actually dangling loose. He pushed the loose end of the plastic tube over the valve, and the radiators started working.
So, finally, fifteen months after the boiler had first been installed, it was working to specification. Those fifteen months included two of the coldest winters Wales has had in the last few decades.
And even when the boiler finally was working to specification it was crap.
The first reason that it was crap was that it didn't produce hot water on demand. It produced hot water thirty seconds after the demand. This wasn't a bug. It was a feature. The boiler took ten seconds to notice that the hot water tap was running, and another ten seconds to fire up, and the hot water took ten seconds more to work its way around the system and come out through the tap.
Compare that with the old system, with a tank of hot water. There was a ten second delay as the hot water had to work its way down from the tank to the tap, but a ten second delay is a lot less irritating than a thirty second delay when you want hot water.
And then compare what happens if you turn the hot water tap off, and then, a few minutes later, turn it back on again. With the old system, you get hot water straight away, as the water in the pipes is still hot. With the new system, all the hot water has already poured through the tap, so you have to wait another thirty seconds.
The guy who installed the boiler knew that combi boilers do this. All of his previous customers had complained about it. So when, just like all his previous customers, I complained that I wasn't getting hot water from the boiler, he assumed that I didn't know that I now had to wait thirty seconds, and told me what he told all his other customers, that I was using it wrongly.
The second reason that the boiler was crap was that it was incredibly noisy. It was even noisy when it was just sitting there monitoring the water flow and wondering whether or not it should fire up. When it actually did fire up, it was even noisier.
That wasn't too much of a problem for me. The main bedroom was in the front of the house, well away from the boiler.
However, it was a problem on the rare occasions that I had any guests. The second bedroom was at the back of the house, and its window was directly above the rear extension where the boiler lived. No-one could possibly sleep there.
I sold the house when I moved to Japan. But it stopped being the house I wanted to live in the day the guy took the old boiler out.
Back to the present.
Friday 10th June
The saga nears its conclusion.
On Thursday, I had a phone call from my landlord's father, informing me that the Man from Roca would call at 6pm the following day.
So on Friday I left the office early. In fact, I left earlier than originally planned, as I heard thunder. But I didn't leave quite early enough. The rain started to fall while I was still en route, and I was fairly wet by the time I got back to the flat.
But I had plenty of time to dry off.
The landlord's father arrived just before 6pm. The Man from Roca arrived ten or fifteen minutes later and set to work.
He removed the metal cover from the boiler.
He removed another metal front plate from the boiler.
He removed the thingummajig from the boiler. There was nothing wrong with the thingummajig, but he wanted to replace the whatchamacallit, and you can't get at the whatchamacallit without removing the thingummajig.
He removed the whatchamacallit.
He installed a replacement whatchamacallit.
He tried replacing the thingummajig, but it wouldn't fit.
He hit the thingummajig a bit harder, but it still wouldn't fit.
He removed a grommet, ran to the Roca shop (about five minutes away on foot), and returned with a replacement grommet. He installed the replacement grommet.
He tried replacing the thingummajig, but it still wouldn't fit.
He hit the thingummajig a bit harder, and this time it went where it should, up against the whatchamacallit with only the grommet between them,
By this time, he also had his suspicions about the oojamaflip. The oojamaflip is located on the top right-hand corner, and is one of the few things which can be replaced without having to remove anything else first (Roca boilers are not designed with maintenance in mind).
So he removed the old oojamaflip.
Then he ran back to the Roca shop, and returned with a replacement oojamaflip, which he installed without much trouble.
The whole process had taken about an hour. He replaced the metal front plate and said, cross your fingers.
He reset the boiler and ran a hot tap. The boiler crashed, with the same error code, 40-70-90, as before.
The landlord's father and the Man from Roca discussed this at length. Where did they go from here? The plan they settled on was to try replacing everything else in the boiler, in ascending order of cost, to see if it made any difference.
So the Man from Roca went back to the Roca shop and returned with a couple of boxes.
The first box contained a widget array. He took off the metal front plate, and removed the widget array. This was quite hard, as Roca boilers are not designed with maintenance in mind.
Installing the replacement widget array was even harder, because, well, you get the idea.
Then he replaced the metal front plate, and reset the boiler. It crashed.
So he removed the metal front plate, took out the new widget array, reinstalled the old and entirely blameless widget array (which wasn't easy), put the new widget array back in its box, and replaced the metal front plate.
The only other option, short of replacing the entire boiler, was to replace the front panel. This contains a lot of electronic stuff, including the pressure gauge. Incidentally, the front panel is a sealed unit. It is not possible to replace just the pressure gauge. If the pressure gauge is faulty (which it wasn't, but that's another story), the whole front panel has to be replaced. Servigas obviously didn't know this when they said the pressure gauge should be replaced, which doesn't say a lot for their competence. The Girl from Roca obviously must have known this when she told me (about eighteen months ago) that they didn't have any pressure gauges in stock, so telling me that they didn't have any pressure gauges in stock rather than that it isn't possible just to replace a pressure gauge doesn't say a lot for their honesty.
So the Man from Roca removed the front panel.
Then he took the replacement front panel from its box and installed it.
He reset the boiler, using the new reset knob on the new front panel.
And, wonder of wonders, the boiler fired up.
He declared the boiler working, and replaced the metal cover. To celebrate his victory, he drilled a hole in the flue above the boiler and installed some sort of valve.
So I now have a working combi boiler, working as well as combi boilers ever do. The whole process took about two hours.
It doesn't quite end there.
For one thing, the boiler had to be allowed to run itself in for an hour. It runs itself in by supplying a central heating demand, and it makes a lot of strange noises while it is doing so. So I let it run itself in for an hour, and then switched the knob to domestic hot water only. A few seconds later, the strange noises stopped.
(The knob on the new front panel feels much better than the old knob. You can tell when it has switched position. With the old knob, there was no tactile feedback, so you couldn't tell whether or not it had registered.)
For another thing, it is possible that the cost of the replacement oojamaflip and the replacement front panel can be claimed on the flat insurance. It seems likely that the old oojamaflip and the old front panel were zapped by a spike in the Spanish electricity supply, which is notorious for its inconsistencies. Apparently, this becomes even more likely if the boiler is plugged in but not switched on, as happens when there is no-one in the flat, and it is true that I was away from the flat for a week in the autumn of 2009, not long before the problems started. So I have to store the old oojamaflip and front panel in case the insurance company wants to look at them.
However, there is no way that the cost of the replacement whatchamacallit can be claimed on the flat insurance. The old whatchamacallit had reached the end of its lifespan and had to be replaced anyway. The lifespan of a whatchamacallit is less than the lifespan of the boiler as a whole. Which is presumably why the Roca designers made it so hard to replace a whatchamacallit. Have I mentioned that the boiler was not designed with maintenance in mind?
Finally, the gas people still have to inspect the boiler to check that it is safe. It is safe. The Man from Roca went all over it with his own gas sniffer to check for leaks (this, I gather, is what the flue valve is for), and there weren't any. But the gas people won't take his word for it and will want to do an inspection of their own. So this still isn't quite the last entry in the Saga of the Spanish Combi Boiler.
So how does this compare with Wales? In Wales, it took fifteen months to fix a badly-installed boiler, and those fifteen months included two of the worst winters of recent times. In Spain, it took eighteen months to fix a dodgy boiler, but the winters were comparatively mild.
Tuesday 14th June
The saga is almost done. A notice has gone up in the foyer of the block of flats where I live to the effect that three of the flats, including mine, will be retested for safety on Tuesday 21st.
Clearly, I am not the only person in the block to have had trouble with combi boilers.
Tuesday 21st June
After eating lunch in the canteen from 1:30 to 2:00, I walked back to the flat. According to the notice, the inspection would be carried out at some unspecified time between 3:00 and 7:00.
It was a good job I got back early, as the guy actually turned up at twenty to three. He was in the flat for all of five minutes, and most of that was filling out the paperwork.
He started by asking what had been done to fix the boiler, then saw that the front panel was new and said, never mind. I ran a hot tap in the kitchen, the boiler fired up properly, he used a sort of magic wand gadget to check the emissions for faulty combustion and decided that everything was in order, and the magic wand gadget printed out a ticket. It took him longer to stamp each of the three copies of the official paperwork with his official stamp than it did to do the technical stuff. He stapled the ticket from the magic wand gadget to the green copy, and left taking the white and yellow copies with him.
I now have a green piece of paper which confirms that all of the signalled anomalies have been corrected. I shall pass it on to my landlord in due course.
That is how sagas end in Spain. Not with a bang, but with a green piece of paper stamped with an official stamp.
Return to my Home Page.