60's technology to the rescue.

[owdamer]

My boiler died on tuesday until I can get a new one fitted i'm on oil filled radiators to keep the house at a reasonable temperature, and an electric blanket to keep us from freezing in the night.
Biggest problem was the lack of hot water. A kettle full of water doesn't really stretch very far and as the g/f has very long hair she was wondering how she was going to wash it. My dad came to the rescue. He has a baby burco that my mum used to wash my nappies in 40 years ago. When he suggested it I was a little dubious, but we were desperate so we tried it. Its brilliant. I think it holds about 5 gallons. I half filled it, plugged it in and left it. 10 mins later and the waters pretty much boiling.
I dread to think how much electricity it uses, but as the boilers fucked i guess we dont have to worry bout gas bills!. lol.

[colin1]

probably just needs the pilot relighting

mine has blown out twice over the last 2 days, because its been very windy

you will need to open a flap on your boiler or something probably and follow the instructions to relight

on mine, its hold one button in while sparking with the other button
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[stinkwheel]

[Ariel Badger]

Cool, Your GF has hair with bits of your baby poo in it. It puts the whole "Circle of life" thing into perspective.
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Bikers make great organ donors, get 115 on your licence today.

[owdamer]

[colin1]

[owdamer]

I'm sat near my oil filled rad so quite warm. Its a pain not being about to have a shower in't morning tho. Got a bit of a break from it over the weekend as we'll go to our static. We'll be nice n warm there and the shower is brilliant. Wont want to come home on sunday tho.

[panrider_uk]

[The View Askew]

I had exactly what Stinkwheel said in my Glow-Worm.



Yeah that is infuriating to deal with when it's on its way out, waking up in the morning to a shower that isn't hot when I've finished having a shit.
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"Do what you always did, get what you always got"

[SoulRider]

[carvell]

British Gas homecare thing was excellent for me.

Boiler broke Saturday evening, rang them up and they were round Sunday morning and had it fixed in an hour or so. Without having to give them any money for parts or labour! (except the £10 odd a month obviously).
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Yamaha TDM 850

[MarJay]

I've got a Worcester Bosch boiler and I've got their maintenance plan. Its pretty damn good and costs about £112 a year. Its more than paid for itself as since moving in here (about four years ago) I've had five new heat exchangers fitted. Combi boilers don't work well in hard water areas, but who cares when you get an engineer to your house to fix it within a couple of days?

Luckily the heating has never packed up (touch wood) just hot water, but still I'm really glad I bought the service contract.
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F; Cheap project: CBR900RR FireBlade
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[dgo1212]

My boiler broke just before christmas and if i'm honest,i'm glad.As when my mate came to have a look at it (he's a plumber but not gas fitter) and pointed out it was well and truly shafted,he also pointed out that my ornamental open fire was in fact,a real fire,complete with back boiler,he got me a used tank from a modernisation job he was on and within a couple of days had ripped out my combi and plumbed in the original system,sounds simple but there was a lot of work to do after(plastering and decorating).Get firewood by the bootload for free from a local garage door company and a skip hire firm,and if fires not lit i simply turn imerson heater on for hot water,not only do i save about £75pm on gas but my shower no longer scalds me if some twat turns a tap on,hot water runs faster and i don't need a gas fitter if it breaks.IMO combi boilers are s**t

[panrider_uk]

[SoulRider]

For us every year we have the free service and every year we are then without gas for 2-3 days as they have messed something up.

They have left us with a gas leak, forgot to switch our gas back on twice. It took them 4 months to sort out our heating which kept turning of in the evening and would not come back on. They broke our fireplace and again it took them around 2 months to get that sorted lol. I normally wouldnt recomend them but if you willing to put up with the crap service then its a cheap way to get your heating eventually sorted.
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My Bike Pics

[stinkwheel]

My fucking ancient gas boiler (must be 25 years old at least) has broken twice in the last 8 years. Both times after switching it off for an extended period, both times it was the thermocouple which I fixed for a tenner.

On a boiler service contract at £10 per month I'd have spent £960 for £20 worth of parts and four twiddles of a screwdriver. I'd also have had to fit a new boiler and flue because a "registered" gas technician would have comdemned it due to its antiquated design.

I am very careful to not allow any members of the gas board see my boiler.

Contract, schmontract.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Vin]

[stinkwheel]

[Vin]

I agree with you about combi boilers and when they fail they can fail dangerously.
I have an old boiler too which is rarely serviced and reliable so we are in almost total agreement.
I mentioned CO alarms as a way of securing peace of mind. Lots of people read these threads so it wasn't really just aimed at you. If you are happy you are safe then thats fine.

[owdamer]

We had a plumber out last week. He's quoted us £1860 + vat to supply and fit a worcester boiler. I had a search round the net and I can buy the boiler myself for between £700-£750. Now i dont mind paying someone to do the work, But a grand for fitting a boiler? Thats taking the piss.
We've got another plumber coming round tonight to have a look, and we've got a guy comeing on wednesday who has given us a rough quote of £1200 + vat.
I'm not rushing into anything. We've had the worst of the cold weather now. Its only going to improve from here, albeit with the odd cold spell. We've only got the oil filled rads on in the evenings as we're at work all day, and at weekends we go to our static caravan.
Its warm there (2 oil filled rads as it happens, and we have hot running water!)