So it turns out that the heat’s never worked properly in this house since we moved in.
Here’s the thing: the heating in Ireland is such shit that this never occurred to us as a possibility. We’ve been trained to think sleeping in gloves is just a thing you have to do sometimes.
The radiators were gurgling horribly & Ted tried bleeding them (again: this happened a few weeks ago & we eventually turned the boiler off & back on again & the heat came back, but THIS time) the whole system shut down & we were obliged to call the landlord, & not only did it turn out there were Mysterious Aspects to bleeding the radiators that hadn’t been made clear but also the hot water heater was essentially not working, except when the house heat was providing it hot water. It ALSO had a leak.
So the radiators were literally not heating the upstairs in any meaningful way EVER, & the hot water heater was not heating the water.
After the radiators were dealt with properly, the upstairs got warm for the first time ever. Then it turned out the downstairs ones had stopped working, & guess what: it was exactly the same temperature downstairs as it has been upstairs for the past 3 years. It was like there was an inversion layer.
The landlord came back & sorted out the downstairs, & was mildly dismayed that we’d been living like this all along, but I shit you not, fifteen years of experience in this country told us this was just how things worked here.
It will be the heating (and the total inability to buy a house) that drives me out of this country one day. :p