Sun traps

On Sunday, Ian, Thomas and I briefed most of the rest of the gang regarding what to do in the event of a problem with the biomass boiler (now anthropomorphised by Thomas as Harry the Hargassner).

Stuart was up early on Monday morning, and the first to realise that we had no heating. He dashed round to the boiler house, eager to put his new knowledge into effect, only to find that one of the main heating pumps was leaking copious quantities of water all of the floor, and the pressurisation unit had given up trying to maintain the pressure in the system.

Until tea-time today, then, we have had no central heating or hot water, other than the wood-burning stove in the refectory, a few oil-filled radiators, and what comes out of kettles - the water heater in the kitchen is still also on the blink. Thankfully it has been sunny, so the south-facing rooms have received a lot of passive solar gain. The installers came out on Monday, but couldn't do anything, and the engineer from the pump manufacturers was booked up until this afternoon. But he has fixed it, and hopefully (I keep saying that!) things will be fine now.

It was an incentive to find things to do in the sun, such as weeding, and measuring and cutting carpets on the community building south terrace, which has proved to be a nice sun trap.