The Nice Men came to visit today
Apr. 22nd, 2010 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgFurther to my plans to get back to normal life after Swancon, today I enjoyed the company of two Nice Men for air-con servicing and a bit of plumbery. The people over the road had insulation put in today, so it was action stations for our little cul-de-sac.
The Sector 7 laundry now sports some sexy new taps that--gasp--turn on and off again. Rad. I learned new and exciting things about recent advances in tap and hose technology. The plumber waxed lyrical about the good old days when you could get taps in any colour (the ones he removed were blue), and expressed approval for my use of the rule "righty tighty, lefty loosey". He also used to live just around the corner from here, so he was familiar with the local blend of tap water. Mmmmm. Gritty.
I got a bit carried away and asked him if he had time to replace the spigot over the laundry trough, as the old original articulated spigot had seized up and was a pest to use. Now I won't have to wrestle buckets quite so much; I'm sure the buckets are deeply disappointed. Actually, it's a while since I wrestled a bucket, but I've one less excuse now. There are buckets in my future.
The new fitting doesn't quite cover the great gaping hole hacked into the tiles for the original installation. It was "a rough old job" apparently. Surprise surprise. By contrast the air-con guy said our system was "a nice job" which was reassuring, since I paid for it. I'm not sure if he actually *did* anything, but I feel better for getting it serviced after several years of loyal service and a particularly long hot summer. He liked my McGyvering on the perished insulation.
The mystery mouldy smell seems to have gone away by itself. This morning I smelled bacon, so I suspect that the problem, if any, is not with us. Perhaps the neighbours have moved the body, or simply cured it. Bacon smells much nicer than mould. I can't help but wonder if I have the odd olfactory hallucination now and then. Smells are distressingly unverifiable things, but neighbourhood woodsmoke and BBQ smells don't cause quite the same levels of concern.
Both tradies expressed interest in the external house render, in common with about 9/10 visitors. It looks like the product (Silkcoat from Turkey) never really took off here and remains a bit of a novelty. Google laughs at my attempts to find a website reference. It's a bit of a worry when a google search for ProductName fails to find http://www.ProductName.com.
The Sector 7 laundry now sports some sexy new taps that--gasp--turn on and off again. Rad. I learned new and exciting things about recent advances in tap and hose technology. The plumber waxed lyrical about the good old days when you could get taps in any colour (the ones he removed were blue), and expressed approval for my use of the rule "righty tighty, lefty loosey". He also used to live just around the corner from here, so he was familiar with the local blend of tap water. Mmmmm. Gritty.
I got a bit carried away and asked him if he had time to replace the spigot over the laundry trough, as the old original articulated spigot had seized up and was a pest to use. Now I won't have to wrestle buckets quite so much; I'm sure the buckets are deeply disappointed. Actually, it's a while since I wrestled a bucket, but I've one less excuse now. There are buckets in my future.
The new fitting doesn't quite cover the great gaping hole hacked into the tiles for the original installation. It was "a rough old job" apparently. Surprise surprise. By contrast the air-con guy said our system was "a nice job" which was reassuring, since I paid for it. I'm not sure if he actually *did* anything, but I feel better for getting it serviced after several years of loyal service and a particularly long hot summer. He liked my McGyvering on the perished insulation.
The mystery mouldy smell seems to have gone away by itself. This morning I smelled bacon, so I suspect that the problem, if any, is not with us. Perhaps the neighbours have moved the body, or simply cured it. Bacon smells much nicer than mould. I can't help but wonder if I have the odd olfactory hallucination now and then. Smells are distressingly unverifiable things, but neighbourhood woodsmoke and BBQ smells don't cause quite the same levels of concern.
Both tradies expressed interest in the external house render, in common with about 9/10 visitors. It looks like the product (Silkcoat from Turkey) never really took off here and remains a bit of a novelty. Google laughs at my attempts to find a website reference. It's a bit of a worry when a google search for ProductName fails to find http://www.ProductName.com.
