Well, not hot exactly, but definitely cosy – we’ve got central heating :)

We have had a few people round to quote for it and went with the guy who actually came round when he said he would, and wasn’t the most expensive. Well they turned up at 9am on Monday morning and it was all finished by Wednesday afternoon!

The mess was quite astonishing, I think because we have solid brick walls, so any drilling means brick dust over everything around¹. They brought the water pipes up through the house in the hallway, and then along each floor in turn. The boiler went into the smallest bedroom (rather than being in the living room which is where the old one was – strangely) and that room definitely came of worst. There was also a gas fire removed from that room so we’ve got a gaping hole where there was a fireplace about thirty years ago – and the hole contains the guff that has fallen down the uncapped chimney in the intervening period.

The pipes were run under the floors, which means we’ve had every carpet in the place lifted, more or less. Happily the plumber was quite clever about not lifting floors which were difficult, such as the laminate flooring in the living room or the stone tiles in the bathroom. Presumably this is to avoid trouble for him as much as to save our floors. Having had the floors lifted through most of the house, I’m pleased to report that we have got the original floorboards intact and in good condition throughout which is nice. I’m not sure we’d expose them but they are a nice feature if we did decide to (or decide we can’t afford carpets…)

We went for a lovely big boiler which will hopefully cope well with driving two bathrooms and a kitchen, plus any additions that we make over the coming years. Certainly it drives both the heating and the shower effortlessly. Anyone who has stayed with me will know the “trick” to the shower involving running a hot tap (marked cold) while you shower – this is now eliminated :)

All in all it was well worth it – although the mess has to be seen to be believed and I did find it quite upsetting since we had just started to settle in really. Perhaps I’ll post some photos of the places which suffered rather badly – the much-hated living room panelling came off as well and its not pretty!

¹ Where “everything” includes matresses, beds, towels, and all the computer kit that was upstairs! I’d have moved stuff out of the way if I’d had any idea which places were best to move them to.