Anyone else's boiler broken this Christmas?

[TulipsInbloom1]

Bloody bad luck at this time of year. Broke Christmas Eve and engineer has confirmed today it is not repairable. Only bought this place two months ago and knew then the boiler was working but old. Figured it would go eventually and luckily were able to squirrel away money from previous sale for it.

But of course it would go now, over the festive period, when nee fucker is at work.

Best of all our Emergency Home Cover is only valid if we call them first. Which we didnt do. Bloody stupid of us I know.

Anyone else facing a cold few days?

Mines been off ten days. But we do have a log burner so it's just no hot running water. I do the fastest hairwash on earth using the shower hose and a kettle to strip wash.

Blasts from the hairdryer down tops and bottoms work before I've got the fire going and there's a useful thread in Classics called "no more cold mumsnetters" with a few tips to keep you going.

I'd probably moan more about it but DP is out in an open boat all day and it's unseasonably mild for Scotland 😂

💐 OP. Hope you get something sorted soon.

Oh I will look up that thread. We have a log burner too so able to heat the living room and just been for oil rads for the kids rooms. I definetly need some hairwashing tips as i recently had a fringe cut in so just chucking hair up wont work.

We had this two years ago - you have my utmost sympathies and commiserations. At least it's not a really cold snap at the moment. We had -5 temps at night!

Roll out the hot water bottles and see if you can beg or borrow a couple of electric radiators for the bedrooms.

Our water heater is broken, no hot water since Christmas eve. We've been boiling water for strip washes, and I paid £4.50 EACH for us to use the local leisure centre showers today, which I really can't keep doing. We are likely to be like this until some time next week when the maintenance company get the appropriate part to fix it. It's a pain in the arse.

Our heating is just really useless electric heaters, but the flat hardly ever gets cold anyway, so we just use oil filled radiators when it does.

We did

The new boiler engineer arranged for the hot water to run off the electricity while the boiler was being installed and we kept it as an additional safety thing

5 days at -6! We survived!!

Look for some deals - you can get help with eco funds so worth shipping round and looking at information

Our quotes vetoed by £000’s

Mines shoulder length with a fringe too. Not sure if it would work with kids but use dry shampoo when you can and on wash days, get the fire going. Stand outside the shower, head upside down and wet the ends. Use the ends to wet the scalp to reduce the time cold water is in contact.

Turn the shower away / off while you just shampoo your scalp. The shampoo will run through the ends on the rinse. Squeeze off as much as you can before rinsing. If you're up to it have the hose as close to the head as you can to get it done quickly.

If the pipes freeze or when the snow hits I'll rinse with a kettle of warm water. Weirdly, it stimulates your scalp into a sort of tingling which seems to warm me up

Straight into a turban and sit by the fire.

Hope that helps!

I think they are programmed to go at the most awkward of times
At least this year it is warm (relatively).
Ours went when the temperatures were freezing.

Ours at least had the decency not to conk out until Boxing Day and the plumber fitted a new part and got it running again this afternoon.

They are bloody buggers arent they? Ill brave the hairwash tomorrow. Good tip re swimming. Dh dd and ds are all free so just me to pay for so we will go do a family swim.

Same here, packed up 6am on Xmas morning and spent all morning trying to sort it in between kids opening presents and cooking the turkey. Engineer can't get here until NYE. Thankfully have a fire and electric heaters in bedrooms. And baby wipes/boiling kettle for washing. Heading to local leisure centre for showers tomorrow!

You have my sympathies OP. Our boiler broke during the beast from the east and it was awful. We had 10 days of no boiler and every engineer in the country unavailable. My advice is a) go to Argos or B&Q etc and buy a few air heaters. They’ll warm a room up really quickly. Thevroom will equally cool down fairly quickly but they’re not a bad short term solution. B) only try to heat up one maybe two rooms. You living room and maybe a bedroom when in it. Shut doors and insulate room as best you can c) by heating up big pots of water and your kettle at the same time you’ll find you can actually have a decent bath and wash your hair the old fashioned way using a jug. Make everyone share the bath water. D) consider it an exercise in how our grandparents (depending on your age of course) used to live and count one’s blessings while also cursing the lack of heating and hot water

Should have added - at night and during day wear layers and have a hot water bottle. Always cover yourself with a blanket.

Ours broke 9 days ago. We have hot water (immersion) but no heating. Engineer came out last Friday to fix it but only after dh ordered the new parts, otherwise they wouldn’t have come out til new year.
Still broken, need another part. Engineer gave us a quote for the parts, we said you order them and let us know when arrived and when you can fit them (this was still last Friday). Engineers boss turns up Saturday pm asking whether the parts have turned up ...er no you were supposed to order them yesterday! Didn’t know whether to strangle him or thank him for turning up on a Saturday afternoon.
No idea when it’ll be fixed. Needless to say we will not be using this company again once fixed!,

Boiler didn't break this year, but when I was still with ex, it broke over Xmas once.

However, we have no oven right now, that broke. Letting agent is on the case but it's likely to be next week before it's fixed. We'll manage. Hob works, we have a slow cooker, microwave and rice cooker, so I've planned meals for me and DC around that kind of food.

On the plus side, I taught DS (aged 14) how to cook an omelette. He's taken to it well loves it with a bit of ham and cheese.

We've got an electric shower that doesn't rely on the boiler heating water. If you're planning to replace a shower, it's worth considering this for the possibility of still getting hot showers when the boiler packs in. It was something I managed to persuade Ex to consider, and proved it's worth when the boiler broke down then.