A Domestic Annoyance

~ beetleypete

When I got up this morning, I turned on the central heating. It was very cold inside and outside the house, and the radiators soon warmed us up. Around 11 am, I started to feel cold, and when I touched the radiators, each one was cool. I inspected the boiler in the garage. There was no warning light on indicating failure, and it was making its usual ‘whirring noise’. But for some reason, the heat was not being transmitted to the radiators at all.

Julie rang a friend whose husband is a plumber/heating engineer. While she did that, I set about lighting the wood burner, and bringing in logs from the store outside. He suggested it could be faulty thermostat, and offered to look at it tomorrow evening.

By the time I went out with Ollie, the fire was blazing nicely, and the living room was incredibly warm.

When I got back from a freezing cold dog walk the whole house felt like the tropics, and Julie was almost overwhelmed by how warm it was. I felt the radiators, and they were all red hot! I had to turn the heating off, and that after contacting someone to come out to fix it.

But I know better than to cancel his visit. When a thermostat starts to act strangely, it is probably not too long before it stops working completely.

As my mum used to say, “These things are sent to try us”.

44 thoughts on “A Domestic Annoyance”

    1. It hasn’t cost too much so far, but the main issue is they cannot find out the reason for the fault. Everything has been tested, found to be in good order, and should be working. Only it isn’t working properly, and we don’t know why that is.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  8. Hi Pete, amazingly, across the world, our heater went out too. I’m fighting a bad cold, the house is cold, and we’re using the fireplace to heat the house! We have a repair crew coming on Monday and we should be warm again by Tuesday! Wishing you good luck with the repairs! In the meantime I’m wearing a lot of layers! Hugs, C

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    1. That is a coincidence indeed! We are also still using our wood-burner, and someone is coming to inspect the heating system tomorrow! Snap! 🙂
      Sorry to hear about your bad cold. Stay in front of your fire, and keep warm.
      Best wishes, Pete. x

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  10. Good job you have the wood burning stove. I read your 2015 post about it- and it ties in with what other people have told me about them, that they heat a whole house and hotter than central heating. I’ve been told they are much cheaper too. I sure wish I had one! If I did I wouldn’t put on the central heating and just use the gas boiler for hot water.

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    1. We have no gas supply in Beetley, so the heating runs on oil. That has gone up by 110% since February. Wood burns very hot, and can be very effective, but it is actually quite expensive to buy already chopped up for the right size of the fire. It is a lovely thing to have in the room though; flickering flames, and real direct heat. It reminds me of my youth.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  13. My pet hate is a problem with something like your car and when you tell the tradesman they don’t believe it and want to see or hear it for themselves.
    What does your boiler run on Pete?

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    1. We are hoping it is only that, as the man Julie phoned doesn’t do oil-fired boilers, but can fit a new thermostat. If it isn’t that, then we will need an oil-fired man to fully inspect the boiler.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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