British Gas Sunday drivers

You may have noticed that we're on a tiny bit of the home energy equivalent of a health kick.

The Wattson started it all.

Anyway, after a trip to my brother's house in Devon we became interested in controlling the combi boiler by means of a programmable thermostat.

We surfed and found one on ebay. It arrived and it was only after I'd left positive feedback that we discovered that the circuit board had been wired in error. There are three ways to deal with this. One is to contact the ebay seller, another is to contact the manufacturer and finally one can get the soldering gun out and try and fix it.

We tried the bodge it solution and we ended up with something that was very Heath Robinson.

It was wired in place of the very simple thermostat and it didn't take long for us to lose all heating and hot water.

Upon investigation we saw that the fuses had blown. Once replaced we discovered that after a very short while the fuses went again.

We replaced the original thermostat and called British Gas.

A dishevelled individual who clearly had no concern for hygiene or any care about his appearance turned up this morning. He used a torch to investigate the fuses and decided that we needed new circuit boards and a new boiler clock. When we tried to suggest that there may be a problem with the fuses or asked questions about his diagnosis he became grumpier than he had started.

After he left Dave nipped out to a hardware store and bought some one amp fuses, fitted them and all was well; hot water and heating restored.

We still don't know why the problem occurred and we're nervous about fitting the new thermostat again but we are left wondering about the quality of British Gas engineer training. Use of a multimeter would have determined that the fuses were blown. A torch is not the tool for the job.

Anyway, until we call British Gas to cancel, they're planning to call round on Tuesday to fit a new circuit board and clock. I think I my have mentioned British Gas incompetence before.