Nasty Plumbing

How I wish that I could be feeling cold through choice, because I can't afford the fuel bills.  Instead, I'm sat here feeling the chill because of a broken down central heating system and the apparent impossibility of finding a competent plumber or heating engineer in Crapchester who is able and/or willing to fix it.  It isn't as if I don't know what the problems are: the pump isn't working, (it is getting power in response to the timer and thermostats, implying that something is jamming it or that there's a fault with some component on its circuit board), while there's an ongoing problem with the hot water cylinder - from the symptoms I'd guess that the coil is leaking.  See, I've even done the analytics for them!  Anyway, I got someone to actually look at it last week.  Even then, he wouldn't come out until I managed to get a temporary parking permit for him, which cost me money, then told me that he'd parked in a nearby car park instead, as he couldn't get his vehicle into any of the available spaces on the street.  He then proceeded to try and dispute all the symptoms of my inoperable hot water system, (without actually running any simple tests to verify or dismiss my conclusions), before telling me that everything was probably at fault - cylinder, pump, zone valve and they should all just be replaced.  He left hurriedly - I think that my scepticism showed too clearly on my face - mumbling that he'd give me a quote.  I thought to myself as he left, 'I'm never going to hear from him again, am I?' - so far, I've been proven right.

I got the distinct impression that he couldn't wait to get out of my house.  Perhaps it was my personal hygiene - although I bathe or shower regularly, (thanks to the immersion heater in the tank, I can still get hot water).  Maybe he didn't like the state of the place, although I had tidied up and vacuumed all the floors.  Personally, I suspect that he didn't like my DVD collection, which is currently housed in several plastic crates in the living room, awaiting the erection of some new and, I suspect, entirely mythical shelves that I keep planning.  Anyway, I realised after the plumber had gone that some of my 'video nasties' - most notably Cannibal Holocaust - were face up in one the crates.  Possibly not the best impression to give visitors, but hey, if they judge people on what they watch, then that's their problem.  The long and the short of this is that I'm back to square one when it comes to getting my heating fixed.  Over the past few days I've made a few desultory attempts myself to at least get the pump going again, to no avail.  Although I think that I've established to my own satisfaction that the three-way valve and actuator are still functioning correctly.  I've got the number of a firm of heating engineers that a friend has used in the past, but they are from out of town and may not be willing to travel this far - it will probably cost me extra if they do - but I'm holding onto them as a reserve option.  So, in the meantime, I'll be spending my evenings huddling around my modest electric fire and wearing extra layers of clothing while I trawl through the lower depths of Crapchester's plumbers and heating engineers, (there are already a few ruled out due to the crap work they've done in the past).  This time though, if I do manage to get anyone out, I'll make out sure that all my 'video nasties' are at the bottom of the crate.