There's A Hole In My...

Bucket...that's what I want to sing as in the well known comic song but there will soon be a massive hole in my kitchen wall...I forget whether its 60cm or 100cm my memory isn't what it should be.

I'm all for the health and safety of people but it boils down to extra regulation of gas central heating systems.

We have numerous smoke alarms, a carbon monoxide alarm, we have at least 14 vents in windows and doors around the house. Plus lots of air circulating naturally. When I stand in the kitchen to cook a meal it so cold I am often happy to get out of the kitchen especially at night or during winter and close the door so the rest of the house isn't cold. We don't have a gas fire only a boiler for heating water and the central heating.

Nothing has changed for approx 18 years.

When the engineer arrived and serviced the boiler as he has for years, he said all was well but he felt the ventilation wasn't good enough so contacted his boss to come out and give his opinion.

He decided we have to have an extra hole but he says its so big it cannot go into any of the doors and so they are going to put it in the kitchen and it can only go in one place.

So it will colder and there will be an unsightly hole/grill on display.

The place that the hole is going means that I cannot put a washing machine there which as Mum is housebound more and more I need the facility of using a washing machine. And that is the only place left to put one(near to a drain and water supply)

So it looked as though I'm stuck with washing by hand in the bath and taking washing to the washing line in the garden.

Now, after another talk the next day he suggests that we can put a washing machine in front of the vent as long as we don't block it(That seems to defeat the reason for having the extra vent)

The day he visited, upon leaving he said "There is enough ventilation for you to use the boiler!" That statement again contradicts the insistence that we need that extra vent.

If there is enough ventilation why insist on this vent?

Even the engineer who called him said he thought that there was enough air circulating but that he wanted to cover his back.

If its your own home to some extent you have a say in what happens in your own home but in a situation like this and you rent from a council or Housing Association you have to do what you are told and you get to a point where there is nowhere/no one higher in the chain you can contact to question decisions made but you don't know whether its just a case of being a jobsworth.

I have talked this over with a few neighbours and others and most see it as way over the top.

Many companies doing contract building work for councils and Housing Associations have been so worried about their companies surviving(a couple have gone into receivership)so it could be a case of making work and/or trying to convince the landlord that they are needed.

So we'll just have to go along with it. Looking around other houses around here(Private and social)no one else seems to have had to have this work carried out but there was no way they are going to shift or compromise their stance.

This is not a rant as such more me just being worried and unhappy...If it turns out better than things seem at present I will be the first to say so.

Update:I told you I'd tell if things worked out better...

They arrived today around 9.30am and started to install the vent in the kitchen. All done in less than half an hour...

If I'd had the job done privately I'd have plastered around the pipe but that's all hidden behind the cover on the outside and the grill inside and both have been sealed around the edges.

It looks fine but here's the important thing its not anywhere as big as I was originally told it would be. The person who visited probably wondered what I was going on about but I definitely was told that it was going to be 66cms in size.

I was told that two or three times.

Now I wonder what all the bother was about. Its more like 20cms in size.

The person who called today also still thinks that I can put a washing machine there as long as I don't ram it up against the wall and block the vent.

So all in all its turned out much better than I thought.

But I can definitely feel cold air coming in and cooling that area of the kitchen down as night falls(so its doing its job)but you know we only use the bolier perhaps for an hour a day unless its a very chilly night and even then that would only be for maybe 2-3 hours. And again as its in the kitchen and the door to the rest of the house is closed we are unlikely to be any danger from fumes.