Merlin the Plumber

Happy autumn – I guess. It’s actually beautiful currently. Warmish, very sunny, almost no wind.

Went into town for a haircut the other day. Stopped to spray Dior Sauvage and Miss Dior Essence with hope of doing a combo Dior post. Did the sprays on blotters thank goodness. There’s no way I could have stood either on skin. Which means no post. I’ll just do a synopsis here before getting into the meat of this post.

Sauvage (2015). Serious feh. Pepper to the max, cedar, vetiver. I actually think the Lynx that young men drench themselves in would be easier to deal with than this. Nothing to do with the iconic Eau Sauvage. I’m not big on Johnnie Depp either. I still remember him from the TV show 21 Jump Street.

Miss Dior Essence (2025). There is supposed to be wood and jasmine in this. I get poor quality ethyl maltol. This would clear a dance floor in the ‘80s and I don’t mean that in a positive way. I remember Miss Dior Cherie fondly. This is not that.

Onward.

Today, we’re talking great tradespeople and mediocre ones. We’re not even going to visit with those that are rubbish.

Some readers might recall that I had my house refurbed five years ago – from March through October of Covid time. I do not recommend doing a big project during a plague.

Anyway, some of the workers were great; some not so much. I say this given I got recs for builders and the one I chose actually did a huge extension for friends – which looked gorgeous. Turns out after the builders and guarantees were gone, problems started to pop up – significant problems.

The woman I’d originally spoken with was hugely apologetic. But, it wasn’t her fault and I don’t blame her for whatever issue I’ve had as they pale vs the costs she and her husband had to shell out to fix things.

In any case, much of what the main builder did (he was an employee, not either of the owners) was absolutely fine – and he was a good listener.

It’s the contractors that turned out to be the issue, the electricians and plumbers the company brought in. So, the build itself was good – the problems popped up elsewhere.

Anyway, one of the ongoing post build issues was the boiler. The machine providing the heat and hot water. It lost pressure fairly frequently. Every year in the past four I’d say this to whichever heating engineer came to service it. Every year, said person (I think I had three different ones over that period) would say ‘oh, you probably have a leak somewhere – if it’s under the floor that means taking it up’. And off they’d go, do a service which would take under an hour and say bye till next year. Over which time nothing changed. And I used plumbers who were recommended.

This year, the guy I’d used last year had disappeared. So, I asked on a local Facebook page for recs. And got loads. I googled all of them and culled down to the three who had the best ratings. I ended up with a local guy. Same town as my favourite bakery.

Before he showed up I mentioned to one of my neighbours I’d found this guy and he lived in X. Neighbour said ‘oh, I used that guy named X for some stuff years ago and he was a bit of a genius’.  Lo and behold, he was my guy. Boy, did I feel chirpy after that.

Comes in, I do my spiel about leaks. Off we go upstairs where the boiler lives. First, he says let’s have a look at the radiators. Maybe that’s a start regarding your leak. First one he touches, voila! A small but persistent trickle of damp. All the others were fine. He tightened a nut (now, I could have done that if I’d known to look there five years ago) and then he was off to start the service.

Fifteen minutes later he’s downstairs to tell me he’s found X and Y and he doesn’t think any of the previous plumbers opened up the guts of the boiler. He then goes on to outline what he needs to do regarding X and Y (apparently whoever installed the boiler (one of the builders’ contractors) put something in upside down – now, who the eff does that when they are supposed to be trained in this stuff???).

Long and short, two hours later and a lot of noise my boiler is fixed, serviced, cleaned and repressured. I mentioned all this to a friend and she said, ‘oh, yeah, every once in a blue moon you get someone who is actually engaged by what they do rather than simply seeing it as a job. Maybe a bit of neurodivergence there too…’

So, I keep visiting the boiler now and checking the pressure to see if it has moved. And it takes a lot less time for the hot water to heat up for showers and at the kitchen tap.

Has this happened to you – finding someone who is actually a bit of a magician regarding their trade?

Oh, the other thing is he really liked talking about what he was doing, like you should be interested too and actually care about (and be educated about) what happens in your house.

Pics: pexels and mine