Weather winter 2010/2011

[johnw]

However be careful the pipe is not ruptured otherwise you will have a frozen pipe and an eletrocuted partner. Note - Maggi did not mention that caveat - hmmmm  Shocked.

 Hmmmmmmm indeed, John...... when we tried that trick the other week I was the one out there with the hairdryer.......

Since he's already tried 15c too, he may next try passing you the hair-dryer whilst in the bath.    And he seems so very innocent on the bulb log.

johnw

[Maggi Young]

Chloe, I sympathise with your plight... worse than mine.... though at least no-one seems to be trying to do away with you, I hope.

 John, I will be especially vigilant.... I am fairly sure he has no insurance on me so in the absence of a financial benefit  he must just be really fed up with me........... the bounder! Can't imagine what in
our many decades together could possibly have cheesed him off...........

[Arykana]

today, inside my bedroom

[Tony Willis]

Thanks for the helpful advice which I do appreciate.

It is not a frozen outlet pipe because I had this problem last year before I was aware of such things (newish boiler) and sorted it out in the spring by re-routing the pipe so it is inside the house. The service engineer told me I am a clever boy.

British Gas has a video on its website to show how to thaw the pipe and when you telephone for an engineer it is the first message on its multi option system referring you to it.

The problem is the fan has failed.

Although I am a diy fanatic this is beyond me and we will wait for the professional to come.

Woolly socks,fingerless gloves and emptying the dishwasher whilst the pots are still hot are all helping.

[Ian Y]

Tony four screws and a squirt with WD 40 may be all that is between you and heat.

That is certainly what the professional help will do first and if it works charge you a hundred quids or so for his trouble.

[Paddy Tobin]

I have a friend who is a plumber and he just loves this time of year - great money to be made from simple repairs, frozen pipes, burst pipes, troublesome boilers and the likes.

Fortunately, I can 'phone him, tell him my problem and he will suggest a few things I can try before I call him in. This generally works and saves money.

Paddy

[Tony Willis]

Ian thank you I will have a look and see if I can sort it.

I have a service contract with BG and have found them excellent and it has been worth the money over the years.

I realise this will raise scornful comments but we each live our lives our own way

[SusanS]

I'm with you on this one Tony, firm believer in BG service contract.

just before Christmas we had a problem with a frozen / blocked pipe.  The condensate pipe is linked into the washing machine waste pipe, this runs round the inside of the utility room for about 14 feet before going through an external wall into a drain.  The constant trickle of water from the boiler froze and gradually blocked the end of the pipe.  Darren discovered the problem when he decided to do some washing.  The plug of ice caused the washing machine to overflow onto the floor.  Easily sorted with a hot water bottle on the pipe and a couple of kettles of hot water.

On the plus side, it did mean the floor got washed.

Who said men can't multitask! 

[Martin Baxendale]

I put foam pipe insulation on our boiler condensate pipe outside the house as soon as the really cold weather was forecast because I had problems with it freezing during the cold spell back in January/February, but it still froze up a few days ago when we were getting about minus 10c at night. When our new condensing boiler was put in about four years ago he installers never warned us about this an d never even mentioned the possibility of plumbing it into an existing indoor waste pipe - good idea that, Tony. It's quite easy to locate the fan once the front cover is off and try lubricating and freeing up. As I mentioned earlier, though, if it's  not just a stuck fan then it could be the fan motor burned out or a faulty air flow sensor. 

[Hoy]

I am glad I have no such problems. Here we use electricity for heating and we also have the possibility to use wood as  we do now, just home from a long journey in cold weather. All roads open but much more snow in the garden than when we went. They say it's the coldest December her for 198 years!

[astragalus]

We have just had a blizzard.  No one knows what the snow accumulation actually is - somewhere over 15" but less than the 24" predicted.  Howling wind, frequent "white-out" conditions and wind gusts over 50 m.p.h. made for interesting garden scenes.  In some places the roof is bare thanks to the wind - in other places there are deep drifts.
There are few signs in the following pictures of over 10 stone walls.  The good thing is that there are no deer prints.  The bad thing is that our snow plower was very inaccurate and plowed up yards of phloxes near the driveway.  In the first picture the right hand lower corner shows some uprooted phlox.

[astragalus]

Sorry, the picture with the plowed up phlox didn't come through.  Here it is.

[ranunculus]

Oh, all those BEAUTIFUL phlox ... I have seen just how glorious they are in bloom ... you must be devastated, Anne?

[astragalus]

Cliff, he plowed up many YARDS of phloxes.  But Phlox seem to like it here and they will recover the area in time.  I'll just let them seed themselves and go thru the process again of roguing out the colors that are not as interesting.  You never know what colors you will get thru seeds.  I will take the time to take cuttings of the best colors.

[cohan]

in spite of all the work (and its a lot of work!) sawing and chopping firewood, i have to say i am very happy overall with my wood heater --i can keep it as toasty as i want--assuming i can spread the heat out from the stove, so bedroom is considerably cooler, and it can take a while to warm the bathroom in the morning, but here at the computer, near the stovew, its positively tropical! maggi's 15C would be cold for me(though i'm sure at times watching tv in the bedroom its no more than that, but i can put a fan in the doorway to warm it...)

but the 5C indoors!! in portugal is just shocking to me...lol..(sorry, i'm forgetting your name, casalima, though of course i've read it before
as for windows, wouldn't think of opening one at any less than 10C outside...(though the front door lets in plenty of fresh air when opened, no porch!

anne--sorry about the phloxes--our neighbour has occasionally come over with the small snow plow(not this year yet)--usually after we have already done everything with shovels  but i have had to put markers in a couple of spots to make sure they don't plow up flower beds.. a patch of wild shrubs at the top of the driveway, and a nice big rotting log have taken hits--these are not things locals here would recognise as being desirable...lol