Snow Day Like A Snow Day

First off I have to put up the obligatory snow day picture...

The pristine snow really does look beautiful, and the first path of a walker always looks kind of mysterious... like, seriously, where is that nutter off to? But these snow days have taken a complete different twist, and really made me stop and think.

The main thing I took from yesterday's snow debacle was that really I'm very lucky and I shouldn't be moaning at all. So genuinely these moans, while originally from me, aren't really about me.

The Story

Yesterday morning I woke up before 5am. My heating wasn't due to come on for about another 20 minutes but the temperature in the house had a definite bite to it. I came downstairs and checked my thermostat and I could see the little flame indicator was on which means it's bringing the heating on, so I went on with my morning.

I stepped into the shower and took the head off the wall to turn it on and wait for the water to heat up. (I'm not one of these insane people who just steps right in, those people need to seek professional help.) It didn't warm up much, but it was a cold day and the boiler was only just kicking in so I gave it a bit longer... but that didn't appear to be going so well.

Fast forward 30 seconds and I'm standing in my freeing kitchen, in a towel, staring at some flashing lights on my boiler. I'm not happy. Phone in hand I'm Googling what these flashing lights mean, the first one means the batteries need changing in my thermostat... off I pootle to change them... hit the reset button, wait for the whirring to subside, and bingo, the lights all stop flashing.

Back to the bathroom, step into the shower, turn on water. Hoorah! That's not ice cold anymore, but it isn't massively warm either. My brain decides the best thing to do is wash my hair really quickly and then if it's hotter at that point I can shower, or wait until I get to the office. My hair is lathered up and you guessed it... the water is ice cold. At this point I've got no real choice because my entire head is bubbles... like a crazy Christmas morning swimmer I submerge my head VERY briefly in the cold water.

Back to the boiler. (On the plus side, after the dunking, the rest of the house seems positively tropical.) And all those pretty flashing lights are dancing away again.

At this point I'm back on Google. The manual says bugger all. Some forums just say that it's broken and to call someone to fix it. So who you gonna call? You could try Ghostbusters, but honestly your best bet is your energy supplier. In my case, British Gas.

I'm going to cut out a chunk here and skip straight to the end... I fixed it myself. And 4 hours after getting up I was finally headed to work. That time frame was 3 hours of me trying to get other people to fix it for me, 20 minutes where I was so annoyed I went out to get breakfast from McDonalds, and then 40 minutes where I fixed it AND went to B&Q to try and stop it from happening again.

The Solution

I love being from the internet generation. When the boiler wasn't working I was straight to Google. I found the boiler manual (which was nowhere to be found when I moved in), I was on the British Gas app trying to get a call out, and I was reading FAQs on Worcester's website for problems connected with the flashing lights.

Admittedly, sometimes this route isn't the most productive. I watched three YouTube videos (from the same account, so you'd think I'd have learnt after the first one!) that were just a guy filming the flashing lights on his boiler, or showing you how he'd opened a panel... not helpful. What I did find on YouTube was the Worcester account that has some helpful how to guides. An actual professional showing you how to do the basics to maintain your boiler.

One of the problems it could have been was the pressure, and mine was down near zero. So I watched their video on how to raise the pressure, and bingo bango, ten minutes later that was right and I reset the boiler again. Unfortunately that didn't work.

Next, while sitting on hold and/or frustratedly clicking the redial button on the phone, I was watching some of their other how to videos to see if there was anything else I could do... and there was, but I only caught it in passing and quickly rewound it a bit to listen again.

A common problem with boilers in cold weather is that the outflow pipe freezes up.

As soon as I heard it I felt like I'd found my problem. Boots on. Jumper on. Cardigan on. Scarf on. Gloves on. Coat on. Step out of the door into an icy cold oblivion and wander down the side of the house.

There on the side of the wall coming from the exact spot where my boiler was, was an old looking (previously) white pipe leading down to the drain... with a large block of ice flowing out of the bottom.

It kind of reminded me of my favourite Tom and Jerry episode, Mice Follies, where they turn the kitchen into an ice rink by flooding it and freezing the water all the way across the room back up into the taps.

One more YouTube video later and I've discovered the safest way to defrost the pipe.

Six buckets of warm water after that and the pipe is clear.

*deep breath*

*presses reset button on boiler*

Some familiar whirring sounds come from the boiler. Not the strained clanking sounds from earlier. An agonising minute of waiting and... I'm back up and running.

Off to B&Q to get some pieces of pipe insulation, they're not perfect, but they'll fit well enough to protect it until the weather has passed.

The Deeper Thoughts

What if I wasn't an able-bodied person, with the common sense/knowledge to be able to fix this myself?

I know plenty of people who wouldn't have been able to do what I did. As much as I love some of my friends the look on their face when I mention fixing myself cracks me up. Not because they don't think I can do it, but because "you get someone to do that for you".

Now I understand that yesterday in the UK the whole country fell apart. People weren't able to get to work in some places. Motorways were blocked. It was general chaos. But we need to think beyond, to how these situations affect people other than ourselves.

In my job I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home... a blessing and a curse... but with other jobs this just isn't possible. Call centre jobs, while they could be done from home, won't be. And I get that. But British Gas, in my opinion, really have dropped the ball for their vulnerable customers.

Yesterday morning I spent 40 minutes on hold going in a loop being told by the lovely automated voice (that you grow to hate very quickly) that someone would be with me shortly. The voice also repeatedly tells you that you can book an appointment online... you can't by the way. When you click "book an appointment" a pop-up appears telling you to call up.

During that 40 minute hold music festival I discovered online that the phone lines don't open until 8, so there was no way I was going to "get to speak to someone shortly". You can imagine how annoyed I was. All three of the numbers I had found basically did the same thing. The first thing you hear when you ring up out of office hours should be "I'm sorry but our lines aren't open yet. Please ring back between Xam and Xpm", followed by emergency numbers for gas leaks and power outages.

After 8am I sat down with my phone and proceeded to try all three of the numbers I'd got for British Gas. I made 18 phone calls. The shortest one rang once and I was told I couldn't be connected. Most lasted 3 minutes where I was connected, told someone would be with me shortly, and then in the next instant told that there were no agents to take my call and I was politely cut off. A couple of times I was told that they had probably had to evacuate the building or there was a system problem.

All this just made me more angry.

Once everything was fixed, that's when I really started to think. Like I said at the beginning of this section. I'm able-bodied. I knew that if I couldn't get the boiler fixed that I'd be alright because I could keep moving, go to the office, and if worst came to the worst, find somewhere else to stay until I could get it sorted.

But what if I wasn't?

British Gas operate a service, which you pay for, that means you can get unlimited call outs and for what you're paying you'd assume there would always be someone on the end of the phone when you had an emergency. I can imagine that quite a few older people living on their own, and people who don't know handymen or anyone that could help them might choose this option to give them some kind of peace of mind.

After my experience of the British Gas phone loop I was... well, a little bit broken. At one point I was crying because I didn't know what I was going to do because no one was responding and seemingly there was no way to fix my problem. After that little meltdown I told myself to get a grip. My situation wasn't nearly as bad as some other people's were.

Just one reassuring actual human voice would have helped. Not the constant contradiction of "someone will be with you shortly" and then "there's no one here to take your call, bye".

Even having a help line that instead of chanting pointless things like those above whilst you were on hold gave you tips... that would be more helpful. I would guess that a significant amount of the emergency calls could have been solved by defrosting the outflow pipe... so why not tell people that? Sure, you might miss out on your call out fee for repairs that don't cost you anything, but you'd get a lot of good will, and you'd have a lot of customers that weren't sitting at home worrying themselves sick.

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My winter top tip: How to defrost your boiler's outflow pipe

It's really simple guys.

Locate your boiler's outflow pipe:

It will be on the outside of your building and it should start directly behind where your boiler is attached inside your home. It will be a pipe leading down to your drain. And if it's frozen you should see a giant lump of ice plugging the bottom.

To defrost the pipe:

Use buckets of warm water. I used a kettle full of boiling water and about three again of cold. (Save yourself hanging around time... when you've poured the boiling water into the bucket, refill and start the kettle again before you top up with cold and go out to the pipe.)

Pour the water slowly over the pipe. I started at the top and worked my way down, as obviously the water will flow down the pipe naturally. If the end of the pipe in bent at a right angle pour water over this bit to defrost the end.

Repeat as necessary. After four buckets of water I started to notice water running out from inside the pipe as the blockage defrosted. I poured another couple to make sure most of the ice was gone.

Protecting your pipe from refreezing:

As a quick fix to keep the freezing wind and snow off the pipe I brought a couple of lengths of Climaflex Pipe Insulation (that grey foam pipe with a cut down one edge) from B&Q. It's under £1 a piece and makes for a good stop gap until you can get it properly insulated.

Split the part cut edge of the Climaflex with a knife and "clip" over the outflow pipe.

The lengths of pipe don't come with a very large inside diameter. I brought the large one and it covers about two thirds of the pipe. That's enough to protect the bits of the pipe that aren't given some protection by the wall. It might be handy to have a couple of cable ties if it doesn't look like it's going to stay on the pipe, one at each end should work fine as it's just temporary.

Good luck keeping your boiler running.