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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Chim Chim Cher-ee

We had two visitors today in our apartment: an electrician and a chimney sweeper. The electrician came early in the morning, and spent quite some time fixing the electric board. After a series of "Hein," "Impossible," and "Arggg," I asked if it was difficult to fix, to which he responded that he had seen worse. He showed me one very important lamp inside the panel, which indicates the malfunction of our gas boiler. He said that if ours is on and our neighbour's is on, that means there is a problem with the air circulation of the entire building. He said, "Vous pouvez mourir, malheureusement," literally meaning you can die unfortunately. Thank you for the info!

Then the chimney sweeper came, a universal symbol of luck. He looked at the exhaust connected from the boiler to the wall briefly, and he went out of the unit to check the chimney. He came back shortly after and a brief explanation of how the exhaust should be connected to a chimney began. We looked out the window and compared the various chimneys that we see on top of the other buildings. There are ancient ones, modern ones. "Well, yours is not connected to any." That is way too interesting. He said that it is obligatoire that the boiler has the vent... Yeah, I think so too.

Our apartment is in the middle of the building, and I wonder what kind of work is necessary for the vent to reach the chimney... Oh là là!?

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