Le Dépanneur

Our boiler has been acting up recently. We started smelling a strong odor of heating fuel in the utility room a few days ago. And then suddenly, the boiler starting cutting itself off automatically when it's not supposed to. This is a safety feature, so at least we know that's working. Then, when it does cut off, the burner kind of diesels a little, making a shuddering noise. That's not good.

The heating technician's truck outside our house. And he does wear that blue uniform.

So we called the people who maintain our boiler. We bought a service contract with them several years ago. They come once a year to clean and check the boiler and replace the fuel injector. And they provide service calls at no cost. You can read about our last encounter with them here.

We called a guy out on Saturday to look at things. He did some adjusting and said it should work all right. It was better, but then it starting cutting out again on Monday. So we called again. Another technician came by on Tuesday morning and said that it looked as though the fuel pump was dying. He heard the dieseling noise when the boiler cut off and that confirmed it for him.

Now we're waiting for an estimate on the replacement of the fuel pump assembly. The technician said we were looking at between €150 and €300. We only pay for the part, the labor is included in our service contract. Still, it's not cheap, but it's much better than the cost of buying and installing a brand new boiler. It's a German unit that's only eighteen years old, so it should last longer. The guy told me that with a new pump it should continue on just fine for some time.

I hope he's right.