Hot water

One of my first ever brushes with Spanish rules and regulations was when I decided that we needed a second butane bottle for the heater in the flat we were renting in Santa Pola. What now seems eminently sensible - that before you can start using bottled gas in your home somebody needs to check that the installation is safe - seemed very Orwellian back then. A future with a boot stamping on a human face - forever. All I wanted was to buy a gas bottle and they wanted to see ID, they wanted me to prove where I lived, they wanted me to sign a contract and they wanted a technician to visit to make sure it was all safe. Having lived here a long time now and having seen the news stories of blocks of flats destroyed with dodgy gas installations and having heard how insurance companies love to avoid paying out if you can't show proof of a current five year check or even if the rubber pipes are past their sell by date, then I am very happy to do as I should. Anyway, there was a bit of a loophole in the system, whilst Repsol, the orange bottle suppliers, wouldn't give me a contract without seeing the installation, the Cepsa people, who provide silver bottles, made me show ID and the like but gave me the bottle simply by signing the contract. It's such a long time ago that I forget the detail of why and how they justified the difference.

Living in the countryside has lots of advantages, less coming and going, less noise and a bit of outside space. It also has disadvantages. The main one is that it's a fair distance to the shops and suchlike but it has less obvious drawbacks like relatively slow Internet and a miserable electric supply of just 3.45kw. We realised, right from the start, that if we didn't want circuit breakers popping all the time then we should use non electrical appliances when good, non electrical alternatives were available. A gas hob for instance and a gas water heater. We also have butane heaters peppered through the house.

I've never doubted that the gas water heater was a good call. Well sort of. Gas heaters have a huge advantage that they just go on and on producing hot water. They are not like an electric immersion with a certain capacity. How many times have you had to wait for the water to heat after your mum, dad, sister, brother or a person from a non nuclear or non heterosexual family, one that doesn't perpetuate outdated stereotypes, has used up all the hot water with their environmentally unfriendly long showers? Not a problem with a gas heater - so long as there's gas and water it will produce endless hot water. 

Originally our gas water heater provided the water to our bathrooms and kitchen though sometime last year we got an under sink electric water heater for the kitchen because the wait for the hot water to arrive there, at the end of a long run, just got silly. The truth is that we have had a lot of trouble with the gas heaters. We've had two heaters now and, as I type, I can hear the plumber cursing as he drills through the 60cm thick wall to fit the inlet/exhaust pipe for number three! Just like the regular checking of the installation you have to use a registered fitter, at least legally, to fit any fixed gas appliance like water heaters or cookers. 

One of the reasons the heaters fail is all the limescale around here. The water is really hard and furs up the heater elements of electric water heaters and blocks the tubes in gas models. Over the years our first gas heater became less and less efficient. We'd get a plumber in, they'd clean everything out and we'd get back to a slightly less efficient normal. Eventually the services were making no difference and a luke warm shower on a miserable January morning is not a good way to start the day. So we bought heater number two. It was fine at first but then it started to have the same problems as the model it had replaced. We went through the same routine of getting it cleaned and fettled. We also had a problem with the electronic gadgetry which is supposed to deal with the ignition and temperature control. Local plumbers can't get the parts for the water heaters, so it has to be the official service people for spares. Given that the majority of brands have their service centres in and around Alicante they charge a big call-out fee and only venture into the rural wilds once each week. 

Last Sunday afternoon the water heater stopped firing up. It may be that it's just silted up but I suspect it's the electronics again and perming the reduced performance with the big call-out fee we went for heater number three. Sime brand this time, Italian I understand rather than the French Leclerc or the German Junkers that we've had before. We shall see.

Watery stuff

Artemio is a heavy set bloke who works for Pinoso Town Hall. Usually he has a big cigar clamped between his teeth. I'd prefer not to commit to giving him an age. He drives a Jeep which, he says, is much better than the Land Rover he used to have but, as you can see from the snap alongside, the Land Rover is still with the team. Artemio's  voice is raspy and, until the second or third sentence, when I tune in, I find him really difficult to understand. Artemio is the bloke you call if there is a water leak out in the street, or in our case, on the track. It's a 24 hour a day service. Should you ever need it the number is 656978410. If the leak is on the domestic side of the water meter then you need a plumber but if the leak is on the other side of the meter you call Artemio. Or rather you call his number. He's in charge of the team and he's not always the person who turns up.

Most people expect that when they click the switch on the wall the electric light will come on and when they open the tap water will come out. In rural Spain that's not always the case. I suppose in rural Scotland it could well be the same. If you live a long way from power lines or water pipes then you're on your own. We have mains water and mains electric but not everyone in the countryside has. People have water storage tanks which have to be filled up from time to time by tanker lorry and lots of houses run off solar power either for environmental reasons or because they have no economic option.

Piped water around here comes as two variants. The stuff we have is drinking tap water. It comes filtered and treated. There is another network of water supply organised locally by S.A.T. Aguas de Pinoso, la Sociedad Agraria de Transformación. That network is designed for crop irrigation but, because it runs in places where the drinking water network doesn't some people use it as their primary water source. I think that it is basically filtered but I don't think it's suitable for drinking. That said I've made tea with it presuming that the boiled water would be safe. I wrote that section without checking the detail. I think it's correct but if it isn't I apologise now.

So, the last time I called Artemio was because I'd cut through a thinnish water pipe when I was hacking out weeds alongside our track. It turned out that it was a pipe our neighbour had laid himself to water his almond trees so I had to ring Artemio back and cancel. The time before that it was the public water supply and the water bubbling up through the soil was in the same place that it has bubbled up time and time again. "It's 30 year old pipe," said Artemio, "what do you expect? It goes time after time and we patch it up time after time too".

Interesting that about the pipe. We had a leak on our side of the water meter the other day. We got the original leak fixed and then the pipe, which is sort of semi rigid rubber, not quite the Durapipe type but not as flexible as hosepipe, sprang a pinhole leak. When I tried a temporary repair with some potty putty type epoxy resin the pipe sprang another leak. When the plumber finally got around to visiting he said that the pipe lasts for so long and then starts to fail; as if it had a sell by date. He also said that the piping which had failed, the stuff he was replacing, was thin walled agricultural pipe rather than the thicker walled domestic supply pipe. From the outside they would look identical if it were not for the blue pinstripe on the domestic stuff. He thought that we may have the thinner walled pipe from the meter to the stopcock in the house. He cheerily suggested that if it were beginning to go it may have reached the end of it's useful life. "Keep an eye on your meter." he said. 

I do check the water meter every week. I've heard far too many stories about unrecognised leaks leading to huge bills. I also pondered the pleasures of house ownership.

These things are sent to try us: three

I was determined that I was not going to get sucked into more cleaning or gardening or household tasks today. I was going to do a bit of reading and then pop in to town and have a chat with Jesús - not that one, just an ordinary bloke with a moustache. 

I had the bright spark idea that I'd dust the cobwebs off the bike and cycle in. When I went in the garage to get the bike there was a lake of water on the floor. Water was dripping down the Dexion shelving that we have there to store things. The main victims of the leak were boxes and boxes of old photos and photo albums. Soggy boxes are difficult to move. Getting a plumber wasn't as smooth a process as I may have hoped but I did get it fixed relatively quickly and the moist victims are sunbathing still.

I should have known. Six or seven hours later and I set about returning the refugee objects to their natural home only to find that there is still a pinprick leak spraying water all over another set of cardboard boxes. I am reminded of Hugh Grant practising vocab as he prepares to marry Duck Face in Four Weddings and a Funeral. 

Update: We had to wait for the plumber till Tuesday to come and fix the second leak. It seems to be OK now.

Putting the customer first

We're back to cold showers. The gas water heater has gone on indefinite strike. The little led panel is running through its full range of codes, E9, F0; I think that's a zero not a command.

So, I thought that this time we'd call the official service people, their number is on a sticker on the water hater. I'm not particularly good on phones nowadays. I tend to cut across people and they definitely cut across me. I understand why George Clooney, as Billy Tyne, says "over" or even "over and out" when he's talking to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Obviously it's a bit more difficult again in Spanish. Hand movements and facial gestures may be available via facetime but not in an ordinary phone call. And ask my pal Harry what radio professionals say about dead air. A two second silence in a radio show sounds lasts a lifetime. I always feel the same about a pause on the telephone. Keeping speaking is essential. It can lead to appalling language errors. That's why I use WhatsApp a lot.

So I ring the Junkers people. I remind myself that slave labour was generations ago. The phone offers me a service in English. I press 1. The woman speaks to me in Spanish. Never mind. I keep cool and I talk slowly and calmly. It goes well. "I'll get someone to phone you back from Alicante," she says.

All day I carry the phone. We country folk don't get good coverage. It's OK by the palm tree but terrible alongside the aljibe. Nobody phones. I'm careful to keep the phone on full volume, with vibrate as well, in my back pocket. Nothing. No, they haven't rung the fixed phone either. Some eight hours later I decide I should phone a local plumber. He doesn't answer but I leave a message. Three hours later Maggie does the same to the same plumber as he know her number. He still hasn't answered.

This morning I phone another local plumber, the sort with a new van and logos on their polo shirts. No beer gut. "Ah, it sounds like spares," he says, "you'll need to go to the official service people, they won't sell me spares". He tells me how expensive they are and even over the phone I can hear him suck air through his teeth.

By now I know there's a part of the official dealer network based in Alicante and finding their number is easy. I ring. We go through the details. "Ah, you phoned our head office yesterday, yes, we're coming to you on Monday, that's when we do that area". I sniggered. That's because I couldn't do that "Why the hell didn't you tell me that yesterday and not leave me thinking that something had gone wrong" speech. Glib was easier. "It's good that we like cold showers," I said. I was lying. Maggie doesn't.

I wrote this days after the rest of this post. The Junkers people turned up as promised and within twenty minutes of the scheduled time. It was a replacement part. 160€ and we have hot water again.

Fear stalks the land

The stories of huge water bills in Spain are legion. Not for the cost of the water, which is usually very reasonable, but for undiscovered leaks.

Everyone in Spain has a water meter. Leaks on the supply side, before the water meter, are the problem of the supplier but, once past the meter, the problem is yours.

The water supply to our house is not sophiticated. A plastic tube is buried in a shallow trench under the dirt road that passes the house and a spur brings water to our meter. Our supply is no more than a thick plastic hose buried only inches under the garden. When it gets cold we often lose water for a while until the pipes unfreeze. Because of this I check the water meter regularly to make sure that the consumption seems reasonable and normal. The past couple of times the reading has been a bit high. Six or seven cubic metres instead of the usual three or four. I didn't worry too much. We've run the irrigation system on the garden a couple of times and there is a more general use of the hosepipe to water plants here and there. We also use an aljibe, a big rainwater tank, to water the garden but even then a few hundred gallons from the piped supply seemed explicable.

Maggie said to me the other day though that she could hear the sound of water running in the tubes. Sure enough, with an ear pressed to the wall, it was obvious. I checked the meter carefully and it was confirmed; the smallest needle was creeping inexorably round.

All of our pipework is buried under concrete floors and behind ceramic tiles. Unless it was a simple problem with the taps we were going to be smashing tiles and digging up floors. Yesterday the plumber confirmed the worst. It wasn't the tap. We needed to reveal the pipework and the plumber suggested a builder who came and smashed the marble in the shower cubicle, cutting his hand in the process. The leak wasn't in the uncovered pipes.

This was bad. Sleepless night bad. Something else would have to be dug up, maybe the floor of the shower, maybe the tiled floor. The plumber came back today with a man who had a listening device to find the source of the leak. He found it and the plumber has now dug up the floor of our bedroom to reveal the dodgy pipework. He's still in the middle of doing it as I type. He's gone to get specialist soldering kit.

The good news is that he's found it. Even better he found it underneath the first tile he lifted and he's only had to dig up two tiles to gain access. The bad news is that we have no spares for the tiles dug up and whilst it's a common design the chance of getting an exact match are slight. In the walk in shower the destroyed marble is going to be hard to replace too.

Well, said the plumber, at least you won't need a boat now but maybe you'll need a new rug.

Luxury

I painted the front door last week. I did an awful job; all runs and dead flies. Maggie and I agreed that it looked better than before though. Anyway it was bucolic, rustic, in keeping with our living situation.

Our electric supply is a bit rural too. When we moved in, we were smart enough to put our cooking and weater heating onto gas. True, we have to lug the gas bottles about but we don't have circuit breakers popping all the time.

The hot water isn't as hot in winter as in summer. Insulation is not common in our part of the world so we were not at all surprised that the water was cooler in the colder months. It had to pass through all that cold earth. We weren't surprised either that the water got hotter more quickly in one bathroom than the others - more cold ground = cooler water for longer.

We've had some lovely weather recently. High 20s and sunny so and I was a bit surprised that the hot water was more like tepid water. Shower time was not a pleasure. Grease stuck obstinately to the cutlery as we washed up. It took us days to decide that it wasn't just rural it was a problem. I tried some home solutions but, eventually, we called Jesús, the plumber. At first he was stumped too. We had water, we had gas, the boiler was lighting up, why was the water not hot enough? He found the fault though, an intermittent fault. He's fixed it now and the water is scalding hot.

It's amazing how luxurious it feels to have hot water.