Time slips by

One thing that's always bugged us about this house is the stairs. They're quite narrow but there's not a lot we can do about that without an extortionately expensive and invasive replacement. Width isn't the main gripe though. Worst is the newel caps, which are large and square, and just the right height to catch your upper arm as you climb past, leaving you with a sore arm at best or occasionally a bruise. Next: the creaks. Pretty much every tread creaks, some much worse than others. And finally there's the look. Tatty, old and cheap. Painted pine. Very definitely a bargain basement kind of staircase.

So we found a refurb company and decided to go ahead.

Couple of days later, I got to thinking. It's always best, I find, to do your thinking after the major decision has been made. That way any additional work created by said major decision has to be done. Immediately. It can't be put off. My thinking went something like: "the whole hall, stairwell, and landing needs redecorating. I don't want to be splashing paint everywhere when we've had thousands of pounds worth of staircase installed." My next thought was even more buttock clenching: "If we strip this paper off and the walls need replastering, I definitely don't want that doing post-staircase."

We got started with the stripping the next day, the walls did need skimming, I called the builder and he's coming tomorrow. But all of that isn't really the point of this post. It's just the background to why, this morning, the central heating timer/thermostat was balanced on the bottom newel post.

In preparation for the plastering, I'd removed everything removable from the walls. Since it's a wireless transmitter, that included the timer. But it's also the thermostat, and we soon discovered that position was critical. I stuck it on top of the burglar alarm unit at first. The small amount of heat rising from that was enough to keep the thermostat from activating the boiler. We sat shivering in the lounge until I realised what was going on, and moved it onto the microwave. But the kitchen is by far the coldest room in the house. The boiler fired constantly but the stat never reached its target. In the lounge, we sweated.

After several more attempts, we found just the right non-wall position for it. On top of the newel post. The perfect place for me, coming downstairs in the dark and reaching for support, to send it flying.

It hit the hall floor and with that unmistakably expensive sound of shattering electronics, broke into a million pieces. Well, fourteen. Only I didn't know that when I turned the light on. I only found 11. The case, the circuit board, the display, its mount and its clear plastic window, the battery trays (2 off), three of the four batteries, and a little rubber thingy. I had no idea what that was.

I carried the bits into the kitchen where the light was better and took stock. The first thing obviously missing was the fourth battery which I found, after a very brief search, under the hall radiator. Then I panicked. I'd only ever seen this device - it's called a digistat - looking like this:

It didn't look much like that now. But how damaged was it really? I took a closer look. The circuit board was still in one piece. No cracks, or displaced components. The display didn't appear to be broken, and its connector - a single strip protected by a rubber sleeve - was still attached. I discovered two other rubber thingies on the circuit board. The shape of a leprechaun's hat but only about four millimetres tall, they have a tiny carbon plunger inside. Sitting beneath the switches, when pressed the rubber deforms allowing the carbon plunger to touch the circuit board and make a connection between two half-moon shaped gold contacts. Clever stuff. I attached the third rubber dude and then panicked again. The unit has four switches.

I went back and searched the hall. Amazingly, since the gaps in the floorboards are easily wide enough for these guys to drop through, I found the fourth hat. It was then I noticed there was a hole in the case where the fourth switch should be. The one with the "+" symbol was missing. Until then I hadn't even realised the switches were separate pieces, as the "-", "SET?" and "SELECT" buttons had stayed with the case. Another search of the hall failed to turn up the last switch, but I caught sight of it under the coffee table by the living room door. It had bounced six feet further than any other piece.

OK. Battery trays slid into place. Rubber hats all attached. Display contact positioned above gold contact strip, and plastic insert in place to keep the display level. Window clipped over that whole assembly, switches all pushed into their holes, and... align... and... press. No click. Ah. You can't close the case when the battery trays are inserted. Remove battery trays. Replace rubber hat that's dropped off. Replace switch that's fallen out again. Align. Press. CLICK!

Breathe an initial sigh of relief. Now for the real test. Insert batteries.

The display lit up and showed 12:00. Setting the time worked. Setting the temperature worked. Switching the mode to "timed" made the boiler fire up. Success!

Later this morning our plumber arrived to service the boiler and I told him the story. "You did well to get that back together," he said. "I've never seen one out of its case - I wouldn't know where to start."

"And they cost about £120 to replace."