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We’ve a bit of a dilemma over our central heating. The boiler we have is around 30 years old, so clearly a classic example of the sort of boiler that we’re being encouraged to upgrade to newer, more efficient condensing boiler systems. If we also moved to a “combi” boiler we’d lose the hot water tank (we don’t make much use of it, on the whole, as we have an electric shower), and – I’m told – automatically save about 25% or so on our gas bills.

The complication comes in the fact that our boiler is outside the house, so we have no gas coming in to the house. I’m a big fan of induction hobs, so have no desire to return to gas hobs, so don’t really want to bring gas inside if we can avoid it. Why in the house? Well it turns out that modern boilers are designed to be inside. They’ve complicated parts, and consist of copper and complex electronics. They just can’t live outside without proper protection.

In comparison, we’ve currently got something a solid-workhorse of a boiler: It lives in a simple walled structure (single bricks) with a basic roof and door with some basic insulation. It just about withstood the gales/storms last week. It’s got (I understand) a cast iron core, so can withstand the temperature and humidity variance that comes with being outside in the boiler house. It’s also very uncomplicated. It heats water, has an outlet flue, and the only electronics are the ignition system and the pump. Hardly complicated. But because of the solid cast structure, it takes a fair bit more energy to get up and running in the mornings.

We could put the replacement boiler in a cupboard in a spare room (where the hot water tank is). It’s perfectly safe. The only place you can’t put a boiler is, I’m told, a bathroom. But personally I don’t like the idea of a boiler in a bedroom: it’d certainly be something I’d query if I was buying a house. Other locations in our house aren’t possible for a variety of reasons to do with layout, distance from gas meter and so on.

Whilst our boiler did break down recently (turns out the thermocouple needed replacing), I was rather reassured that it’s easy to fix (Although the markup charged for the thermocouple itself was eye-watering). Newer boilers with their electronics strike me as a bit more higher maintenance as they get older. Specialist parts are expensive even at the best of times. And there doesn’t seem to be a market these days for simple, cast-structure boilers that can work outside the house.

So our option, if we’re against getting gas run into the house, is to build-up our boiler house a bit from it’s current form, so a combi-boiler could be installed outside at the appropriate height, and to install a proper door/roof to keep the elements properly out. But after talking to the boiler repair engineer, I’m somehow reassured that our existing boiler, despite its various inefficiencies still has a fair bit of life left in it. A classic example of old and reliable

Perhaps I can assuage my green-guilt with my ‘inefficent’ (but simple and reliable) boiler by keeping the hot water tank and getting solar panels fitted to reduce the need to fire up the boiler for the hot water we rarely need. But then is that practical in sunny Glasgow? Or perhaps we should get rid of the electric shower and use this hot water we’re heating? But I rather like the consistency and power of an electric shower.

I’m a big fan of anything that is shiny, or has buttons. Regular readers will know this. If not, well, can you guess what phone I have? It’s not a difficult question….

So when Frances was designing our kitchen, I was delighted to discover that my love of shinybuttony things could be brought to bear on such an important part of our new house.

My Kitchen Gadgets post from last year has merited a few e-mail exchanges with readers about how good (or not) Induction hobs are, and I’ve been meaning to collate them all into a dedicated post.

Needless to say, I’m still extremely pleased with ours. It always features in a ‘tour of the house’ when we have friends staying for the first time. This isn’t as bad as it sounds. Mostly friends are interested in what we’ve done, and like the kitchen…. So don’t worry

The only real negative is you need special pans, and the ones I’d spent ages choosing 3 or 4 years ago weren’t suitable (we just had a ‘normal’ electric hob). That said, I have found some nice pans with a good thick base which work just fine. They’re not a rare commodity either: Just be sure to keep it in mind when you wander around a department store choosing new pans.

I’d challenge anybody who thinks that “gas is best” to give induction a try. I find that the time to get water to the boil with our hob and pans is surprisingly fast. Much faster, I think, than gas ever was in my experience. Plus it returns to the boil in no time, after, say, you add rice to a boiling pan of water. Oh, and it’s a whole lot more energy efficient.

We purchased AEG 4 ring induction hob model. I think they do a few models, but I was quite insistent we get all induction rings, rather than 50/50 (which Frances was favouring, not least that it was cheaper), but I didn’t want one style for some rings, and another for the others. Would confuse me endlessly, and mess up my timings if I needed to switch around. They may do a five hob model, but we didn’t want something that big.

Do be aware that the ‘power boost’ function is limited: There’s only so much ampage that can be supplied to the rings, so you can’t have them all on ‘power boost’, so they arrange the rings in diagonal pairs, and it’ll alternate which as power for a second. Can be a bit odd to get used to, but makes sense. I’ve never needed them all on that anyway, and if I need two on power, I know how best to arrange things.

Some folk feel that woks are no use on Induction hobs, but we picked up a Ken Hom one, with a flat base of course, that is fine, and we do a fair bit of stir fry cooking. OK, here Gas may win out in the grand scheme of things (ie. the flames heat more of the wok), but not by much: I’ve used both and don’t find it’s that much of a problem.

It’s extraordinarily easy to clean (no burnt in residue as the hob surface simply doesn’t get that hot). The hob is heating the saucepan directly, so the surface is just warmed by conduction from the pan. So much lower maintenance!

A couple of caveats: Induction hobs are quite thick compared to ‘normal’ electric hobs – this is because they have fans underneath to keep the magnets cool. About 1.5″ thick in total (roughly), perhaps compared to a 0.5″ on a normal hob? Just bear it in mind if you’re thinking of getting one.

We were worried enough when our (incompetent) kitchen fitters had mounted the oven right underneath, such that the hob appeared to touch the top of the oven. Insulated it may be, I didn’t want to risk it, so had them lower it to give space. Check the clearance heights and so forth on the model you go for, and ventilation requirements too.

I do sometimes find the water-sensor makes fiddling with the controls a bit fiddly, as I’m not the tidiest of cooks I often have wet hands from washing veg and so on. The water-sensor ensures it all switches off if a pan boils over, so I just need to dry my hands: A fair exchange for a useful feature. The power-on is a half-second too slow for impatient old me. That said, the flush-to-worktop surface makes it integrate very well, and there’s nowhere for gunk to build up which would have been the case if we’d gone for tactile controls.

In short, I love it. At least as good as gas (my view is it’s much better). Very efficient. No gas burning. Very controllable. We’ve not had any problems or hassles, and certainly don’t regret spending the extra money to get induction hobs. Highly recommended.

See also

• See my sponsor here, for possible products if you’re searching?

• Wikipedia on Induction Cookers

Two separate matters, but the same issue: Delays.

First up, we decided a while back that we needed to get our slate roof replaced. For our own reasons, we didn’t progress it particularly quickly. With a crap summer, and a calm few weeks, it didn’t seem to have been a bad decision. Then getting quotes took time (post office strikes not helping), and the range of quotes from the companies we contacted, has been really quite astonishing really. The most expensive being over twice as expensive as the cheapest, even before VAT is thrown in. Challenged on why, they couldn’t justify it satisfactorily. Thanks, but no thanks.

So we chose a company that had provided a very detailed quote and a mid-range price, and Frances called them earlier to ask a couple of questions to clarify a few things. Then “When would you be able to start?”. 8-10 weeks came the reply. That puts us in mid-December. To have the roof replaced. Not my idea of a fun way to start the holidays, especially as I expect they’ll shut down over Christmas, and it’d be just our luck to have it half-done by then. The roof hasn’t failed, but it’s leaking in a few spots that have meant crawling in the rafters to put some basins around. So we’re either going to delay it until the new year (and when would be a good point to arrange it?), or get more quotes for somebody who can do it sooner. Joy.

The other delay was for a corner TV stand. We’d ordered it back in July from Artisan Furniture, just around the corner from us at the Auld House Retail Park. A newly opened shop, with a lot of nice looking furniture. The “10-12 weeks” comment about how long it would take to deliver struck us as “worst case”, not the normal. But, again, Frances called to chase and it’s supposedly “expecting to dock” soon, so we were wrong – not the worst case at all.

We’re not impressed to be honest. They took their time to write to us to confirm the order, so I’m not entirely sure they didn’t take their time to submit the order to their suppliers. Whilst I’m all for companies managing their stock levels to keep costs down, it seems excessive to take no risk at all on what will sell and what won’t, and have (as appears to be the case with us) every order matched one-to-one with their suppliers on the other side of the planet. It’s not even like we’re ordering a bespoke product. It’s a corner stand for the TV for goodness sake. So, we’re not impressed, and not going to be rushing back there any time soon, if – as we strongly suspect – this is their usual way of going about things.

I’m sorry to report that a dear friend that had become an integral part of my life has very recently departed. This has left me feeling somewhat at a loss for a few days, although I seem to have found a way of coping with this most unexpected of exits. This is probably the reason I’ve not posted much in the last few days. It’s tough dealing with loss, as I’m sure every reader can relate.

You see every morning for the last couple of years this close friend has felt like, no not ‘felt like’, was an integral part of my morning routine. It really felt like we knew each other in a very intimate way. We certainly had a mutual dependency that, I like to think, made my friend feel they were instrumental in my productivity – I certainly felt I couldn’t go about my day without our brief encounters each morning.

The first signs of a serious problem only occurred one day before they departed. I put it down then to my being distracted with work pressures, but I fear they knew the severity of the situation better than I. In retrospect, it felt an altogether mournful day, despite it’s successes in other fields. So the sad reality dawned the next morning (Wednesday just passed), when they weren’t there to great me with the usual aplomb I’ve really come to expect.

In the few days since the departure, I’ve struggled to cope. I found solutions to my pangs, but it really wasn’t the same. No excited look about it when I saw it, and so much more effort that really didn’t work for me in the same way.

So today I went to look for new member of my family. All struck me in different – exiting – ways, each with their own unique appeal. However, whilst you can’t really rush a decision like this, my internet searching hadn’t revealed many candidates, so I ultimately decided that I should go for the first that jumped out as me, without breaking the bank. I made my choice, and I think it’s fair to say I await our first full encounter with some trepidation: They are big boots you are filling, but ultimately I think the relationship should be one of mutual benefit and pleasure, although I feel I need to stay current with developments, just in case.

For the last year or so I’d been using the loft as an office. However, it was getting problematic for a number of reasons: It was cold and silly to heat; It was a long way up those loft stairs in your socks; It was a long way away from the coffee machine. Most importantly of all, however, was that it had a lot of big spiders, and it was short for a 6′2″ person: I couldn’t stand up properly.

With me also recently starting piano lessons, I needed somewhere I could put the keyboard I’ve borrowed from Frances’ brother, and the loft just wasn’t going to cut it. So last year, we decided that I’d make use of the small third bedroom we have as an office. It was, I suppose, inevitable, given it’s a much better space, and has much better layouts for all my gear and desks. So this weekend we had a good rummage through the piles of boxes that had, until then, been living in the room making it largely unusable. We’ve thrown out a great deal, have filtered down a few last things. Enough so that I could dismantle my office up in the loft, and shift it downstairs into the room, where I am now.

It’s funny how much I just enjoy the sheer novelty of a new office setup/location. Perhaps it’s something my mother instilled in me with her (it felt) frequent re-arrangements of the sitting room. New year, new layout and a new favourite spot. Coming home from school to find it had rearranged was always strangely exciting for me. Some latent desire for things to be tidy, and different is there.

Of course, when we first broached the subject of using the room, I had thought we’d clear it right down to the plaster, and decorate it. But things were getting quite urgent, and I was living in the kitchen most of the time, so temporary measures were required, so here I am.

Best of all is the fact that it’s much quieter (I face the quiet street we’re on, whereas the loft’s windows faced the busier main road we’re just back from so got a bit more traffic noise), I’m assured it’s the ‘cosiest’ room in the house (always good).

Plus, of course, the coffee machine is just a flight of stairs and a kitchen lengths away. I can smell the coffee is ready now. Don’t mind me, whilst I go get my morning brew

It’s very easy to criticise, much harder to compliment. Certainly when we’ve felt somewhat under siege at times with incompetent companies doing work in our house and leaving us high and dry (here), or going to restaurants and leaving nonplussed about the experience (here and here), letting off some steam on this website is a useful exercise.

It’s not all negatives though. We were happy with our plumber, enjoyed eating in Miso, Ichiban and – of course – my all time favourite noodle bar Chi Noodle – who have had a major facelift and it’s improved further still. The sooner they open up in Glasgow, the more complete my life will be

So, whilst I do sometimes feel a bit bad about getting negative about places (especially if my google pagerank puts my site higher than theirs), there is – I think – a lot more positive writing up going on on this site than negatives.

I wanted to further that with a non-foody recommendation, and that’s going to hopefully be of interest to Glasgwegian (and Scottish) photographers. If you’ve not already been to Quiggs, then you’re missing out on the best photography shop in town. I was in there this morning hoping to get my Nikon D70 cleaned, and my film camera serviced.

It’s the Achilles heel of Digital SLR’s in that the CCD is behind the reflex mirror and none, as far as I am aware, have any sort of anti-dust system. That means dust can get on the CCD itself, resulting in flecks on pictures (particularly small aperture pictures) that can’t easily be removed with a simple clean (more here). So Quiggs had previously offered to use their high-pressure blower to clean it. And clean it they did. For the grand price of £0. Nadda. Marvellous.

I also wanted to get my film SLR serviced. I’ve not used it in ages, and it’s over 10 years old now, and had the shutter jam on me in San Francisco a few years back, ruining what would otherwise have been some pretty stunning pictures of the park and Yosemite national park. But a quick look, and a bit of a play, and they gave it a bit of a clean, and said it didn’t need anything. It was in excellent enough condition. My jam was probably my touching it when changing the film, not anything systemic.

So, I stocked up on new film and a new 1Gb Compact Flash, and a new battery for my film SLR. Grand total of about £45 of business. But most of all, the extremely friendly, helpful advise, and the aversion to charging me to do simple or unnecessary things, meant that I walked out of there (briefly; I was barely out of the door when I realise I’d left my new purchases on the counter!) feeling that it’s the best photography shop in Glasgow, and one of the best I’ve been to.

Jessops are the high-street shop most people will be familiar with. But I find it a bit too ‘Dixony’. Too many glass displays, too many ensuited assistants who are too keen to push a sale on you, much less have a passion for photography. The guy I dealt with in Quiggs was friendly, affable and knowledgeable. Sure, Parnie street is a bit off the beaten track, but it’s a nice little spot none the less, and we often park in the Kings Street carpark, so not that far out of our way.

So, go check them out: Quiggs of Glasgow – www.quiggs.co.uk. An excellent shop that deserves to continue for doing everything a photography enthusiast could want, so well.

Just a minor update that has big implications – We have finally got a spare bed! Well, futon. Picked it up a couple of weeks ago, and this weekend I’ll be putting it together. It’s a good futon (only the best will do for our friends , so should be plenty comfortable enough.

So, all those friends who – I’m sure – have been gagging to come to Glasgow, feel free. We’re able to host at last, and flights come aplenty from all the major UK airports. There’s a great train service on the west coast too if you travel during the week.

Sorry for the silence over the last while. Life has very much got on top of things, and there’s not much exciting me immensely that I feel I have to rush to the computer and blog about it.

Running

I’ve been suffering a little from shin-splints, which – combined with a few other things – has meant I’ve not been running in almost two weeks. Planning on going tomorrow morning now that I’ve also got various bits of outdoor/winter gear to get excited about. Plan on taking it a bit slower than I had been and try and get back into a routine rather than to push as hard as I had been.

House

We’ve had some problems with the house, specifically our wood floor. It’s taken us – wait for it – six weeks to get a visit from the company (Living Interiors on Great Western Road here in Glasgow) who did the installation. A combination of not returning calls, having the fax machine switched on (simple solution to getting through on that one , and turning up un-announced expecting us to be in has meant we’re not their biggest fans right now. The problem is the wood has swollen/warped in a section of the front room, and that needs to be fixed before it damages anything further (It’s already caused a bit of damage, but mostly superficial). Similar story in the hall, where the wood has swollen meaning we can’t get into the sub-floor any more.

Watch this space for more. We finally had a visit today, and they’re talking of coming back next week to fix it. But I’m sceptical, and not a little pissed off.

Prague

I was in Prague last weekend for my brothers stag do. Regulations prevent me from saying too much more, but I did manage to get folk to see a tiny bit of ‘culture’ whilst we were there, so we can at least pretend we weren’t deluding ourselves that we were in Cardiff or some other city. I managed to win the shooting competition, which was a surprise.

The good news is I didn’t feel that I’d “done” the city, so will be going back there soon with Frances. I’d visited the city 11 years ago almost to the day, so I did notice how radically different the city was. A lot more vibrant, but a lot more touristy. Not sure that the locals are so happy with the changes though.

We finally got around to checking out an ebay drop shop near us in Glasgow. It’s part of the bidway group/franchise. We’d heard about it through Frances’ parents, but we’d not got around to popping in until this morning. Our problem, since our kitchen refit, has been we’ve had an AEG Designer Cooker Hood (HD8795M) sat in our front room. I’d been intending to sell it myself on ebay, but I have no feedback (I’ve not bought or sold a thing), and I’d expect just that if I was buying somethign that’s worth several hundred pounds.

Anyway, we popped in this morning (it’s on Cathcart Road near Mount Florida), and to our delight he (George) seemed interested in taking the item. So we’ve just dug out the extra packaging required, and have enlisted Frances’ fathers’ estate car to help us get it around there before they close today. The main thing is it’ll be out of our front room – any money we get for it will be a benefit of course, plus he takes care of managing the shipment process (another area of worry).

As we chatted, a few anecdotes about enquiries to ship a deep-sea diving helmet to “an island in the south pacific” (£150 postage or so, it seems), as well as somebody who drove up from south of London recently to collect a large satellite dish, only to strap it to the roof of his car (no roof rack, just rope!) in no time at all before heading off again. You’ve got to hand it to ebay, it’s enabled a vibrant surrounding economy, and the ease with which it enables us to get rid of the white elephant in the front room means I’m already thinking of things we can dispose of and make a bit of money with.

Watch this space for news (and links to) the auction!

Update: The auction was a success!

Further update. Whilst we were pleased to see that the item went for the sort of price we’d hoped for, I’m still without my money from the shop almost a month after the auction finished. I’m normally quite patient and happy to allow for a busy company, but a month is bordering on the ridiculous. I called today to be told “We’ve been snowed under“, “We’ve been short staffed“, and “last weeks [school] holidays*” as reasons, all of which I imagine are likely. But a one line e-mail would have put my frustrations at ease somewhat, and that didn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying “don’t use them”. Quite the opposite in fact: It’s a great service. But bear in mind that this is a small outfit, and that you may need to chase a bit. I’m told I should expect my cheque this week, and they’ve been friendly – if not very communicative – throughout.

Update, Updated: OK, cheque received. Happy after all. We sold our item. We were happy with the price we got. Just wish we hadn’t had to have chased: It probably was busyness on their part. So, would I do it again? Probably. I’d certainly be very interested in hearing from others who’ve used the company to hear their thoughts. I’m sure my other readers would be too.

Yesterday saw folk turn up to repair the neighbours path. Lots of head scratching was involved when they realised the problem hadn’t been solved, but they proceeded apace anyway.

We still had lots of water in our garden, so I phoned up Scottish Water once more to find out what was going on. To cut a tediously long story short, for reasons unknown to man or beast, our call wasn’t flagged as ‘urgent’ in anyway (despite their adding “emergency” priority to our requests for their man Frank to come back and check), and the dispatched was putting visits off to the end of the week. When I explained we had water in our foundations (ok, sub-floor, but folk don’t seem to ‘get’ sub-floor), the penny finally dropped on one of their call centre staff, and we were bumped up the priority list.

It also transpired that there were two ‘tickets’ against our problem. The one opened nearly two weeks ago by me, and the one opened that morning (I suspect) by the company that had tried to find the problem in the neighbours garden. That the ticket was ‘new’ makes me worried that the company ruining the neighbours path wasn’t notifying Scottish Water as they had implied. I called up to advise them of the two reference numbers to make sure things tallied. Not sure it necessarily helped, but at least eased my worries that there were two separate issues as far as they were concerned.

Anyway, SW bloke turned up yesterday to look at the situation and concur it was on the street, and scheduled a crew to come this morning. And come they (eventually) did, and proceeded to cut pavement, dig holes and change pipe before disappearing. SW bloke turned up this afternoon to check, and agreed it had been done and that the water at the bottom of the hole was from a land-drain or somesuch, not the pipe. But we now have a front garden that’s (relatively) dry.

So tomorrow or the next day the hole should be filled. But that still leaves our neighbours with a cut up front path, with a new blob of fresh concrete in their path, for an exploratory dig that hadn’t been necessary given the sonar guy had implied it was close to the wall anyway. Lots of ruined plants. We’re as we were, but I’m furious it took so long, and was seemingly reliant on one over worked chap to come out and concur it was Scottish Water’s problem, plus the breakdown in communication that was going on between everybody, not least the call-centre staff and the dispatchers, for not understanding the severity of the problem.

Letters will be written, so it’s not the end of the story. I expect my neighbour is going to do the same. Two weeks to plug a hole. But at least it’s plugged.