(no subject)

...and the answer to last night's question is that the immersion heater is most certainly dead. Not only did it trip the breaker again when I switched it back on, it went BAM! and spat a couple of sparks out through the hole for the cable along with a wisp of smoke. Since I was half-expecting some sort of failure I'd thought ahead and used a cardboard tube to prod the switch from arms' length (though mainly in case there was an earth fault and all the nearby pipework became momentarily live).

Ah well, time to get in touch with the landlady. And in the meantime... well, the shower has its own heater, the washing machine only uses cold water, and I can always use the kettle to heat water for washing up. Really, an instantaneous hot water heater would probably be more useful and efficient than a hot water cylinder.


In other news, it turns out that Lakeland no longer stock those solar lights nor do they have replacement parts, which is a shame. But they have offered a refund which I did not expect at all. Ten brownie points to Lakeland for that!