I would say you’ve just blown the fuse in the boiler, personally I won’t have even gone to to do the job in the present climate. I take it they had lost hot water as well after you put the stat on?

Life goes in stages.


Suddenly it’s more years ago than I care to remember. I started subbing to a central heating company who looked like they were going to give me more work than I could cope with and I was filling my van with the bits and pieces needed to install, fault find, repair and maintain central heating controls, I also bought reference books, collected installation leaflets and printed pages off the internet, which I read and then put behind the seats in my van. I became the go to guy for electrical issues with central heating controls, every day I had plumbers phoning me asking what and how to do about installing controls and to try and sort problems out, often for jobs I had never even been to.


Then the firm stopped phoning me and it stopped, one day was frantic trying to get everything done, the next nothing and I could not get them to answer the phone to me, I drove to the office and it was empty and locked up when previously there had been five staff in there every day with deliveries arriving and plumbers going in and out all through the day.


They had run out of money, but tried to carry on from home for a week or so and hot another electrician to go and go the work knowing they didn’t have enough money to pay me what they owed me  from the previous three weeks, I never got that money and the other guy got completely burnt as he didn’t get paid at all.


And that was it, my days as the central heating wiring expert were over, I still have some nooks behind the seats in my van, despite replacing the van twice since then and could possibly find some fuses. All the stock of heating controls have long gone, so for the odd bits I do now it’s a trip to a merchant to pick something up.


No more unexpected trips at short notice to drive across a couple of counties to get a central heating system going.


But I have now been working for another company and they have been sending me literally all over the country and I am back in a similar situation, expect Friday morning they paid me every penny they owed me, so I am not going to get ripped off.


Now I have no idea if and when I will start work again, I am assuming I will, but haven’t a clue when or if that customer will still exist after the corona virus lockdown. The van is booked in for a service and MOT this week, really I need to go through everything in the van and see if I actually find any fuses for central heating systems and what other stuff I really have in there. But if I do, is there any point in carrying things like the fuses around as it is years since I I used any.


Without getting maudlin I can see myself having to reinvent myself again in a few weeks to adapt to post lockdown Britain, having just got myself set up for the landlords EICRs spending a lot of money on new kit, which is easily done, I am going to have to accept that it is highly unlikely the government will pass the landlords EICR legislation this year. I potentially had a year or more of really good work in front of me and it could already have disappeared never to be seen again.


So possibly time to clear the van ready to start again without actually knowing what work I will have if any.


The saving grace is that there should always be work for people who fix things.


Andy B.

Back in the days I was referring to I carried around enough stock on the van to install the controls for probably five central heating systems in between trips to the wholesalers. 


If you turned up to do a job miles from anywhere where you needed everything to hand just in case, I still do  that to a certain extent, but not for central heating jobs. In fact I have run my stock out of LED flood lights and other similar materials out as well as that of central heating thermostats, etc, becoming very focused on what I actually have been doing rather than being prepared for every eventuality.


The decline in work of a certain type can become a self fulfilling prophecy, whilst people know you are driving around with stock and the kit to dirt particular jobs out they will ring you yo do so, if you start saying you cannot come for a couple of days or you can come and have a look, but will have to do a second visit because you have to order the kit got overnight delivery the phone doesn’t ring so often.


Andy B.

Zoomup:

. I checked the switched fused connection unit at the boiler and it was displaying a glowing neon, so the 3 Amp fuse there was intact.

Bye,


Gloomy Z.

              

 Not necessarily, some FCUs have loose neon wires, someone in the past might have tried to "fix" a non- working neon by putting it into the input terminal instead of the output one. It would still go on and off when switched if DP and the neutral of the neon was connected to the output N. Unlikely, but possible.

If the neutral at the wall 'stat had had blue sleeving or blue P.C. tape applied (and I had been more careful as well) this problem would not have happened. I believe that I naturally assumed that the black of the new colours 3 core and E cable was N. rather than the grey. A mistake never to be repeated. There is no fool like an old fool.


Z.