Beast from the East

[Carole]

How did every-one cope? 

Our central heating packed up for the two worst days!!!  I managed to book an engineer to come out tomorrow (had to wait over 2 1/2 hours on the phone to get through and then gave up and booked it on line and this was the first date available).   

Just when you need it the most.  Managed to borrow a couple of electric heaters from next door, so together with my campervan heater the downstairs was reasonably warm, and we passed the 3rd heater around upstairs.  Then suddenly it started on its own yesterday lunchtime and is still working OK.  I don't think we have a condenser pipe, and the outside flue is on the first floor above a conservatory, but I bet that must have got frozen up.  Tried to direct the fan heater to it on the inside of the cupboard but it didn't seem to help.

Have now cancelled the engineer as it would have been an insurance claim with Excess.

Oh, forgot to mention bathing, managed to get a bath thanks to the immersion heater but the shower was having problems so I had to wash my hair the old fashioned way in a sink with a cup for rinsing.  Those were the days.

Carole

[The Thing]

No problems, even went over to Bluewater one day, it was empty with shop assistant fighting for customers to relieve the boredom, excellent. What was all the fuss about?

[ApophisAstros]

Had a smattering of Snow , the main problem was the cold.
On your Heating Carole, thank got my mum and dad arranged an annual cover for British Gas years ago , as the water tank broke about 4 months ago and it was fully covered with no excess , think they are a few bob.
Roger

[Carole]

Well we have insurance but could not get through to them as I guess so many people had problems.  Anyway, all's well that ends well.

Carole

[Rick]

I know from past experience that if it's going to freeze for days in a row, then relying on timer mode and the frost-stat wouldn't cut it, so I put the house heating into constant heating mode on Sunday night. It stayed that way 'til Saturday.

Decided I couldn't be bothered to try de-icing the car on Tuesday evening, so walked through the woods in the mooonlight to Petts Wood for the radio club's monthly steak-night gathering, and caught the bus home.

Walked to the shops mid-afternoon, swept the snow off the car, and had a cosy evening at home on Wednesday.

De-frosted the car and then drove to Stansted and back on Thursday. No trouble on the roads apart from the salty-gritty spray.

Stayed home on Friday.

Drove to Gravesend and back on Saturday evening, by which time most of the snow had long gone.

[ApophisAstros]

It sounds a bit like "Canterbury Tales",  :
Roger

[RobertM]

Carole it's the small condensate drain pipe that freezes up in cold weather.  All plumbers do is take a hair drier to it or drill some of the ice out.  It's a common problem.

Robert

[Carole]

Thanks Robert.

Everyone says it is a condensate pipe but we don't have a combi boiler, and there is certainly no pipe running from the boiler down to a drain.  We have a conventional boiler, and I presume the fume outlet nozzle froze up.  This is just a short but wide outlet to let the fumes outside, no liquid comes out of this, just fumes, but I guess the fumes solidified and froze.

I tried a fan heater blowing directly to the pipe that leads to the outlet on the inside (only a nozzle protrudes outside but that did not make any difference. 

We can't get to the outside nozzle as the boiler is upstairs and over a conservatory.  Very annoying. 

Pretty ridiculous though that the very time when you need it is stops working.

Carole