jazzactivist
08-01-2010, 08:50 AM
Well, this morning we woke up to frozen pipes in the downstairs bathroom and the hot water pipe to the kitchen too! It seems inevitable since it was -15 here last night, and the radio is full of people reporting the same. There are even frozen mains pipes in some areas. I suppose that this is the next stage of all the cold weather. So it was strip washes and hair-washing in the sink for us this morning rather than a shower!
We left our central heating on all night, something we have never, ever done before, because of the extreme forecast. The main bathroom of this house is in an annex built onto the back of the house and the kitchen tap runs off that. The pipes go underneath tiles in a very cold back hallway. After a lot of effort I located the main stopcock where the cold water enters the house and have put a hot water bottle next to it. Same in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Don't know what else to do. The heating is a condensing combi-boiler and seems fine and the upstairs loo / sink all seems fine. I am hoping that we don't get a burst pipe in the downstairs bathroom. There are lots of folded towels on the ground in the cupboard where the stopcock is, and where the pipes lead to and from the boiler, which is incongruous in this pristine house, so I wonder if there has been a burst pipe before. I am reluctant to turn the heating off as we don't have any other source, but should I be doing so?
It seems a strange thing to have happened in this house which was all newly renovated not long before we moved in. When we lived in a remote Scottish village on top of a hill we expected frozen pipes but never had any, despite regular below zero temperatures in winter.
We left our central heating on all night, something we have never, ever done before, because of the extreme forecast. The main bathroom of this house is in an annex built onto the back of the house and the kitchen tap runs off that. The pipes go underneath tiles in a very cold back hallway. After a lot of effort I located the main stopcock where the cold water enters the house and have put a hot water bottle next to it. Same in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Don't know what else to do. The heating is a condensing combi-boiler and seems fine and the upstairs loo / sink all seems fine. I am hoping that we don't get a burst pipe in the downstairs bathroom. There are lots of folded towels on the ground in the cupboard where the stopcock is, and where the pipes lead to and from the boiler, which is incongruous in this pristine house, so I wonder if there has been a burst pipe before. I am reluctant to turn the heating off as we don't have any other source, but should I be doing so?
It seems a strange thing to have happened in this house which was all newly renovated not long before we moved in. When we lived in a remote Scottish village on top of a hill we expected frozen pipes but never had any, despite regular below zero temperatures in winter.