Posted by Alex & Linty

The many uses of a toothbrush – morning of Sat 7th July

Cleaning teeth? Normally, yes. Using an old one to get into those nooks and crannies when house cleaning?….mmmm yes. Cleaning jewellery? …mm on occasion. Testing a macerator on a toilet? Not usually, but yes it happens.

At least to us. Blundering about in the middle of the night on a necessary visit, AFTER using the loo, and flushing I hasten to add, I knocked a couple of items off the shelf in the bathroom. Picked up what I thought I’d dropped without really looking and returned to blissful slumber.

Morning arrives, Alex does his usual morning visit, flushes and an interesting clattering/crunching sound. Much muttering of unmentionables under his breath…Well, that just put the tone on the day – Alex would have to dismantle the loo and investigate the noise. When it came time to clean his teeth, it became apparent just what may have caused the interesting sound. No toothbrush head. It must have fallen down the loo. Mumbling that I just love giving him these little odd jobs, with a grimace – he got dressed and got the toolbox out. Me, well I was heading home to a hospital appointment. (phew, how fortuitous!!!!)

Later in the day, hospital appointment done, cleared and signed off completely after my leg op. earlier in the year, I rang to find out what had come to light after the loo dismantle. After much much sympathetic noise from me – of course!!!! - commiserating on the awful smell he’d had to endure…. Alex informed me that it was his toothbrush that had clattered. Didn’t look like it had actually damaged anything as it was still intact. Needless to say he didn’t immediately rush to brush his teeth though. I magnanimously offered the use of mine, gosh that was so generous of me wasn’t it, least I could do though in the circumstances…… grinning from a safe distance!

However, although having had to endure a smelly job, he was actually grateful that it had forced him to investigate. Our loo hadn’t been performing too well since we’d been travelling from April, and it was a job he’d been putting off. It had blocked a few times before. It came to light that yet again, it was another fitment that our boat builders had bodged. I am not interested in badmouthing someone, but this was just too much. For the simple effort it would have taken to put an extra rightangle bend pipe (elbow joint?) to join two pieces of pipework properly, we’d endured months of ‘will it flush, or won’t it?’ They’d forced a premoulded bend to straighten, kinking the pipework and constricting the flow to about 25%.

Contacting the builder to send someone out was easy, actually achieving that end was impossible. No way could we leave it as it was, and fortunately Macclesfield Canal Centre came to the rescue. I cannot praise them highly enough. Ged, allowed us to moor up for the day, even offered the use of his tools, and let Alex have free access to the toilet he was about to fit into his own boat which was the same make and model fitted to ours. He would sort out replacements and what we owed him later when he could contact the suppliers, this being a weekend. (Our own boat builders had informed us that they wouldn’t be able to send anyone out for the next fortnight. Good customer service???) What a difference in attitude. Our boat builder could take some much needed lessons in after sales service. Not a lot to ask of our builder, but apparently to him, it was. Customers to him seem an inconvenient necessity – which was a remark he’d said we’d actually had reported to us.

The actual repair work was minimal, just requiring a bit of innovative use of jubilee clips to hold the kinked hose to avoid it ‘remembering’ it’s previous unnatural bend, adding the correct elbow etc and replacing the loo itself into position amid breaks for gasps of FRESH air!

We’re still in the year warranty period, I hope to goodness we have no other faults that appear. (We have previously had them fit a missing battery – asked for and spec agreed for 5+1 batteries, but we discovered after a power problem we’d only had 4+1 fitted). I think the name boat builder is a misnomer, he is a fitter only, of shells bought in. When we refer to our ‘boat builder’ we use the term extremely loosely. If it wasn’t for the fact that he inherited some of his skilled factory workers, when he bought this company, they would not now be in business, and if he continues in this fashion with his appalling customer relations reputation spreading, maybe he wont. I’ve yet to speak to anyone who has a good word to say about him, having all suffered the same obstructive and awkward attitude in some way.

I must say, we do have 95% of the boat we wanted, but only after numerous arguments. WE have made errors, but as lay people, you’d expect the builder to correct or advise on what is practical and what is needed. We didn’t get that. Expert advice from someone with no technical or practical experience, from someone who was originally going to buy a tearoom in the Dales, has been thin on the ground. I wish he’d achieved that aim instead.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I have to agree with that one.