Day: 23 July 2007

I’d just like to apologise in advance to anyone who has already heard this story… I’m afraid I did rant in person to a few people! But I thought it was probably worth posting up here as well. You know, just in case anyone hadn’t heard it. Because it’s worth hearing. Yeah.

So. I mentioned a while back that we bought a washing machine from a well-known outlet whose name is almost the same as a well-known form of Indian food. We paid a bit extra to have it installed, in order to save us a bit of hassle on moving in day. We arranged to have it delivered on the day before we were moving in (the Friday).

On the Friday, the delivery men arrived and delivered the washing machine OK, but they refused to install it for two reasons: (1) There were no taps on the washing machine pipe outlets; (2) the electrical socket was too close to the pipe outlet. They’ve been sued in the past because they installed a washing machine like that, and the water pipes burst throwing water all over the electrical socket causing all manner of problems.

Either way, I’m none too happy about it: on Saturday, we (well, technically, my Dad…) had a look at it: there were no taps on the water pipes, this much is true. However, there were grub screws… apparently grub screws are too complicated to operate 😉 And in terms of the electrical socket being too close to the water pipe outlet – Phil’s Dad brought the IEEE guidelines on the subject, and apparently the only regulation is that the electrical socket should be above the water outlet (so that water doesn’t drip down onto it). Our socket was well above the water outlet, by the way. To some extent I can understand their concern, but if they had installed the washing machine they would have done it in line with industry regulations – what more can you ask for? And how have people managed to sue them and get away with it?

Apologies for this long and rambling story, but the moral is: don’t pay extra for installation from shops (unless maybe it’s a small independent place who know what they’re doing). If you need someone it’s probably better to get someone independent (i.e. someone who knows what they’re doing!)

So… what did we get up to this weekend, then? “Not a whole lot” is the astonishing answer to that question! On Friday night we went out to the Rose & Crown on East Street for a drink, which was nice 🙂

On Saturday, we went to the recycling place to get rid of all the boxes we used when we were moving (so much cardboard! – at least it can be recycled…). In the evening, one of Phil’s colleagues had a house warming party so we went along to that. It was good fun actually, and they have a very nice house – it gave us a few ideas…

On Sunday we went to Fordham in the morning. Afterwards, Chris invited us back for lunch, so we were in Wivenhoe for most of the afternoon. We went back home for a bit, before going out to the Bengal Spice for dinner with Alex. We thought that as Alex might not be round here much longer, it would be fitting to have dinner there! It was, as always, lovely food as well.

Afterwards we drove back to Alex’s before wandering down to the Beehive – it was the first time we’d been there, and it was quite a nice pub. If I lived a bit closer I’d probably go in there more often!

Right. I think that’s just about everything for now. We should be getting the internet at home on Wednesday, so hopefully it won’t be too long now before I can write posts at home (not that it will mean I’ll make them any more frequently, but still…)