What do you want first?
The good news is the commissioning editor from Bookouture was delighted to hear from me and will gladly look at Of Black Bulls and White Horses. Book sales in the Sam Green series are pottering along (still looking for 10 sales a day … managed 7 yesterday – none today, yet). It seems my work for the MoD was really appreciated having spoken to the boss on Monday, and the mentoring of a Head teacher in a school in Wiltshire, who I also worked with on Monday, also went down well.
[image error]nobody here but us chickens
And we are parked in a field not 200 metres from the Severn (£10 a night) and there is no one else here. It is quiet and relaxing and pretty perfect. We had an easy day yesterday – short runs and not much else – and today we were going to go for a long walk with a picnic …
… and that’s when the bad news came along. Doris was behaving perfectly. The new Li-Ion leisure batteries are working well and, at some point, I will stop looking at all the dials and meters. I think the batteries are going to be a game changer.
However. As we were preparing to walk I noticed a water leak coming from one of the hot air ducts in the main door’s footwell. Well, that shouldn’t be happening. Our hot water and heating comes from a Truma combi boiler. So I had a look at it and there didn’t appear to be leaks, although there was a pool of water under the boiler (it’s quite tricky to get to and the van is double-floored, which hides everything, but makes life tricky). I looked at some internet diagrams and it seems that the only way for the water to get into the heating duct is for the cylindrical water container, which sits on the outside of the boiler (middle cylinder is the hot air heat exchanger and the inner cylinder the gas boiler) to have cracked, or for a seal to have gone. That would allow water to drip into the middle air container, collect at one end and let gravity take it to the lowest point in the air heating system – the footwell.
[image error]that’s not right
That’s sounds like quite a job. A brand new system is £1600 (yikes), without fitting – I could probably manage it, although I’d have to get a gas man in to check the gas connection. There’s a Chinese company that makes the exact equivalent (sounds like industrial espionage to me) for under £1000. The stainless steel water container, if that’s the problem, is £450. £450 for a bent piece of metal.
[image error]you can just make out the bottom hot air duct. That’s where the water is escaping from
What to do? First, we’re not moving. We’re here for C’s birthday, which is on Sunday, and that’s final. We will strip wash etc … we’re both ex-Army and that will be fine. In a spare moment, of which I will have a few, I might try and strip off the casing of the boiler in situ, to see if I can discover the problem. Then, next week I shall take the whole thing out. If I can’t fix it then at least the hole’s there for someone to fill. Whatever, it could be a cheap fix, but very likely it’s going to be expensive.
Yikes!
Oh well. It’s only money.
Keep safe everyone. And enjoy the sunshine.
