[SEL] Comedy of Errors - bit long but you can associate with this...

[Listerdiesel]

Following on from my comments re ebay in the Bessemer catalogue
thread, I though I'd better post this under a new header so as not to
hijack Arnies thread.

We got a new electric shower unit today, and also another one for the
house rebuild later on from ebay.

Went over to B&Q (Home Depot equivalent in the UK) at Luton near to
our factory, only to find the bl**dy store had closed! This was the
first B&Q Warehouse store in the UK as far as I remember, and was
always busy, so why closed??

Next on the way home is Sainsbury's Homebase, so I cut across town
towards the northern side of Luton and pop into the Homebase store.
It's nearly empty, in complete contrast to B&Q which is always full of
people.

Picked up a piece of copper pipe and some unions, an in-line tap and a
couple of push-on elbows to save soldering with the gas torch. We have
a propane torch and big bottle at home, but I prefer not to use it if
I can use push-ons, and the new shower unit has a plastic stub for the
water inlet.

Feed the nags on the way home, Rita is home today and the other van is
with one of the other boys, so I get to feed them on my own, and one
is missing...  Fed the other four, and went hunting for Shelley, who I
find wandering nonchalently down the field looking quite happy with
life in general....

Got home, had a quick curry, and then we dive into fitting the new
shower. Off comes the old unit (which has lasted 18 years without a
fault, not bad!) and while Philip gets the new control unit mounted
up, I go looking for a file and a hacksaw.

Go to turn the water off and step on a trailing cable to the central
heating boiler. Because one end is trapped under a cupboard or
something we have recently moved, the other end becomes the weakest
link and it pulls out of the boiler junction box with a flash and a
bang and ut go all the house electrics......

Soooo... fumble around in the dark to find the switchboard, find the
earth leakage breaker which has jumped out as the live cable dragged
through the metal control box and everything comes back on again.
Sounds of PC's and network upstairs all rebooting and I get under the
racks and turn off the water so we can disconnect the old unit.

Eventually it is all done and we can smell nice again :-))  Time for a
well deserved glass of something 14% or so, and thanks to Philip who
probably did more of the job than I did, and he didn't foul anything
up in the process. He gave the new shower a quick road test after we
had finished.

Footnote:
B&Q's Luton depot was built on the site of an old Laporte Chemicals
chemical sludge deposit area, and it had started to subside and break
in half. An Aldi supermarket on the same site also had structural
problems and Aldi had successfully sued the builders for £3.3million
in 2002. B&Q were looking for £47 million from the builders and
architects:-

http://www.lutononline.co.uk/viewarticle2.aspx?sectionid=541&ArticleID=700723

Peter
-- 
Peter A Forbes
Email: listerdiesel at gmail.com
Web: www.oldengine.org/members/diesel