Here be workers

Busy day here at Chez Digger. After our recent break-in I decided our alarm system needed a couple of minor upgrades - a PIR motion detector in the hall (together with an alarm panel upstairs so we can activate/deactivate without setting it off!), and a shock sensor on the window used for said break-in.

We had the security firm install a couple of infra-red-activated lights too, down the side of the house where it's dark, there's plenty of tree cover, and it's way too easy for someone involved in nefarious activities to lurk undetected. If they try it now they'll be blasted with several hundred watts of arc light.

While the alarm man was crawling around in the attic finding a power supply for these lights, the freezer man arrived. You'll remember it was playing up before we went off to the Lakes. It took him about a minute and a half on his initial visit to discover the problem - the heater element had burned out, meaning the auto defrost function wasn't working. The consequent frost build-up forced the poor compressor to work overtime and still fail to keep the temperature down. This meant (a) he had to order a part and (b) we'd have to defrost the freezer (which we did on Saturday).

So his task for today was to remove the burned out element and fit the new one. A tough job apparently, as the element has to be carefully "threaded" through the fins of the freezing unit. Clever stuff this - the heater comes on once a day to blast off any frost build-up on the freezing element - which then drips down the back onto the compressor and evaporates.

"This is the hardest part of my job," said Mr Freezer Man, "these are really difficult to fit. Luckily they're extremely reliable, so I don't have to do this very often."
"There's a certain irony," I rejoined, "in you telling me how reliable they are while you're fitting a replacement."