The Illusion of Power

I’m in the train on the way to Munich for my first business trip in over a year.  But this morning I was in the house with Mrs Fehl, our energy adviser, who’s done a great job of navigating all the hurdles so that our grant applications won’t be rejected out of hand, because, for example, our windows have a Uw of 0.95 and not 0.89. This is further complicated by the fact that grants won’t be awarded retrospectively, meaning you can’t give the go to any tradesmen and, particularly, you can’t pay or receive any invoices before the grant applications have been received, which is a massive pair of Vs to the trade, who depend on upfront payments for cashflow. You can add to this, that a lot of the criteria make little or no difference to the total energy efficiency: in Western Europe, triple glazing can’t really save much energy, but it should make a noticeable difference to the sound insulation, which given the proximity of the airport and the train line will be important.

Still, those are the rules of the game, and we’re lucky that the council is also rich enough to throw some money. This makes a difference, because, as with all these things, the main grant just about covers the extra costs, but having two of them means we can also have one new back door and a more elegant French window.

I was presently surprised when I got to the house that the “Kerlin men” were there and already busily plastering away.

Anyway, I got an e-mail from the plumber asking me to call them because they’ve been trying to reach me all day. This is a bit odd, because while the landline is a bit tricky at the moment, my mobile is very reliable. So I give them a call and it turns out they’ve been calling the wrong number. I get a lot of things wrong but one thing that’s nearly always right is my e-mail signature, which is rfc-compliant and always includes correct telephone numbers.

Well, good news: the plumbers can start tomorrow and not on November. Not only is bringing anything forward good, considering the amount of stuff we’ve still got to do, but it always means we can reduce some of the dependencies. The radiators will be removed and new connections fitted, which in turn means that the builders can get on with filling the niches, which in turn means that, in theory, the joiner will be able to start on the floor earlier than anticipated.

Great in theory, but there’s still so much to go wrong. The plumbers can only start if they can get in the house and I’ll be in Munich, and Astrid as usual in Cologne. The builders have a key and I hope they’ll be at the house from 8. Otherwise, the plumbers mightl have to wait until Wednesday when I’ll be back.

The whole thing reminded me of those adverts and films that glorify mobile communication where skilled communicators tug the strings magically and everything just happens.

Except, I’m British and it’s ingrained in us, much as we love progress and technology, not to trust them: of it can go wrong, it will. I can fully expect to go to the house on Wednesday and find the front door walled up and a lovely new hole in another wall somewhere!

As an aside, I’m used to train becoming quieter after Frankfurt, which it is today as well, but because I can only hear Dutch, it feels more like I’m on the way to Amsterdam than Munich. Again, it wouldn’t surprise me to be in the wrong train, except I’d have arrived hours ago…