Life without gas

I have the same problem as my source of heart is a multi fuel stove. Always goes out overnight and takes an age to light and heat the house in the morning. Plus, there the joys of lugging in logs and coal. Fortunately, I have a calor gas cooker and immersion heater for the water.

As someone has revived this thread - even if deleted. It does seem an appropriate point for an update because our gas supply problems continue.

Our gas was cut off originally because of water in the mains. Despite digging innumerable holes round the village the source of the leak has not been found, so the gas company, as they told us, have put a siphon on the lowest point and have been coming round every 10 days or so to pump the water out of the mains to stop our supply being interrupted.

Yesterday we woke to a freezing house, the CH hadn't come on and when I put the kettle on the gas 'poppled'. We looked out of the window and there was the gas van.

We lit our stove, the problem is the weather is really cold at the moment, last time the weather was much warmer and the stove was very effective in keeping us warm, but with freezing conditions outside, we may need to get ourselves a fan heater, just in case.

Fortunately everything was working properly by lunchtime, but it looks as if we are going to have to be prepared for intermittent pressure loss until such time as they discover where the water is coming from.

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What a relief! .

winterwhite the gas company did offer us the loan of heaters and a hot plate, but we reckoned we could manage without them. Hot water for baths and showers was the problem and there was not much they could do about that.

The only alternative for you would be a calor gas heater and a cylinder of calor gas. and a camping stove. Actually visit a camping or caravan shop and have a look at what is on offer.

We have gas for ch only and no open fires. I think we would be very vulnerable in the event of a prolonged power cut. DH pooh poohs and will take no part in considering an emergency cooking stove or similar. Any recommendations of the sort of thing I could just get myself and secrete in the garage?

Hallelujah!!

Day 6: At 5.00pm we were re-connected to the gas supply. They then came round and switched on our boilers and checked both of them and the hob.

Life is back to normal!

I suppose that saves the road being dug up twice but what a pain, Monica.

Buy one of those little mini ovens,so handy as a standby. I always had one in case the gas packed up.

What a pain, *M0nica". Especiall at this time of the year.
I wondered about a bottle of propane, but that might be dangerous.

Day 5: The gas authorities have now decided, not only to repair the leak but replace our gas supply pipe. It seems it is made of steel, and yellow plastic is now mandatory so when they come across steel supply pipes they replace them. This applies to half the houses cut off. This will presumably delay further the return of service as normal .

I still have a back boiler but have only used it sporadically so far. I do have an electric shower and am thinking of buying an oil heater as they are supposed to be very economical. Good luck with you gas (op)

Glad you managed a hot shower and hair wash M0nica better than a tin bath in front of the fire

When we needed to replace our old boiler our gas fitted suggested a combi boiler.
No way.
I wanted to keep our back up immersion heater
Also our airing cupboard where the copper tank is situated has double hanging rails very useful for drying clothes.

We have an electric shower in family bathroom.
Our hob is gas but grill/oven are electric.
As another poster said 'belts and braces.'

However if both gas and elec were to go off then we would have to decamp to my sister's
to sit next to the log burner.?

"Losing the gas supply to the house was never factored in, it is such a rare occurrence."
That's reminded me of something else, sorry, another hard luck story.
In one house we lived in we had a propane gas tank, buried. For the central heating system, hot water, and cooking. One winter there was a spell of very cold weather and the pressure valve on the tank froze up. For about 2 weeks.
Luckily we had a wood burning stove, and electricity. But it was still a trying time.

Just had gasman at door. They still haven't found the leak, so we will be gasless for another couple of days.

We are adjusting to this new world. Thanks to the stove and the chimney the house is now quite cosy. We just have to remember to put more wood on regularly.

Going to the sports centre for a shower worked out quite well, so we will do that every other day. Dishwasher and washing machine are cold fill, so no problems with them

Badenkate, to have an immersion heater you need a hot water tank. In previous houses we have had a hot water tank heated from the boiler with an immersion heater fitted as well. But our current home has 2 combi boilers that just heat water on demand so no hot water tanks to put an immersion heater into.

We have always worked on the basis that having two boilers, it was very unlikely both would break down at the same time, so if one bathroom and half the house had no heating and hot water the other half, with its bathroom would. Losing the gas supply to the house was never factored in, it is such a rare occurrence. Nobody I know has ever had that happen to them.

This Summer I went through the disruption and mess of a completely new central heating system, which meant that every room was affected in some way.
The Central Heating engineer asked if I would like my electric shower converted to be supplied by the boiler.
No way! If the boiler ever fails I have a gas fire, I can heat the kitchen from the electric oven and have an electric shower.

We have a back-up immersion water heater in case the boiler doesn't work. Belts and braces.

Oh I'm sorry to hear you have no hot water, I understand the difficulty. This happened to me last year when outdoors was snow and ice. First two weeks in March. Do you keep turning on the tap only to be sorely disappointed? It's habit.

I moved out of the hothouse that was my grandparents house at eighteen years of age. My grandma had it on twenty four hours a day at full pelt.

They had gas central heating put in as soon as it became widely affordable. I was five. Tiny little brass pipes on the inner walls.
Before that it was coal fires and paraffin heaters. Yes also getting dressed/undressed in bed.
Once I'd moved I missed the heat so much.

Moved into my own house which had a parkray with back boiler and I was freezing.
Until the nineties my hot water source was solid fuel or wood stoves.

The coldest place I lived had half the rooms upstairs over an arch that led to the stable yard. No heat would stay in those rooms. Included in those was the bathroom.
My very tough outdoorsy husband was nearly in tears at the relentless cold . If you are cold in your own home there is nowhere to go to be warm.

That was my childhood, too, Monica. I did say to dh the other day that I don't know how we didn't die from hypothermia in the winter of 62/63!

Our house was old and rambling and in poor condition. My grandad had a coal fire in his room and there was a paraffin heater in the sittingroom and that was it for heating apart from the gas stove. I recall having my clothes in bed with me, too. Also the hot water bottle that became icy-cold by the middle of the night. I vividly remember our bathroom pipes being frozen and my mum washing my younger brother and me by filling the kitchen sink and sitting us on the draining board and sloshing water over us.

The good old days? No thanks!

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201811/medium-484737-bf17a4385349e8d4270c8d72c1b90927.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201811/medium-168461-2db65b6deb571d21a12f911de25e4e06.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201811/medium-963141-2881-water-heater-pipe-model-360x300.jpg

The stove could be used for hot water.
I made a coiled copper pipe that fitted around the flue pipe of my stove in my workshop to heat radiators.
There are other ways too to utilise the heat from the stove for hot water, and some have the option of a built in back boiler from the manufacturer.

Just returned from the sports centre, having had a proper shower and hair wash. The first for three days. It is amazing how much better this has made me feel.

I think we forget how hardy we were in childhood, uninsulated draughty houses, freezing cold every morning (before global warming) until a fire was lit - and not very warm then. Hot water dependent on back boilers or temperamental Ideal stoves in the kitchen.

I can remember staying with an aunt and uncle where my bedroom was so cold I got into bed fully dressed, undressed and put my night clothes on once I had warmed the bed up. Pushing my day clothes down the bed so that they were warm when I got dressed (in bed) in the morning.

Thanks to insulation, an efficient modern stove and a big chimney, we are keeping satisfactorily warm. It is the lack of hot water that is the real problem.

You have my complete sympathy. We came home from a posting abroad, to take over a house we had bought, in one of the worst winters for years. Just before New Year, with DH having gone back to Germany, the CH boiler burst, flooded the utility room, and we were left without heat or hot water. The children thought the world had come to an end - they’d never been so cold! It being New Year we couldn’t get anything done about it for a few days and anyway the insurance company wanted to send a loss adjuster. It was almost two weeks before it was sorted out but fortunately there was an open fireplace which still had a back boiler connected to it so we bought some solid fuel and had heat in one room and hot water. I remember what it was like to grow up in a house with no bathroom, and one cold tap in the kitchen. No thank you! I hope you get it all sorted out soon, MOnica.

petra, It is wood burning only, the multi-fuel grate was a quite expensive extra. We are not tempted to risk it as my sister used solid fuel in our, admittedly ancient, wood burner in France and ruined the grate.

Fortunately, the weather is not too cold, and as I said, we live in an old house with the stove in a huge double sided brick chimney/bread oven, which also goes through the 2 main bedrooms and 2 days of the stove burning has heated this up like a storage radiator, it is warm to the touch, so we are managing without the heating.

It is the lack of hot water that is the problem,but as soon as it is light enough to get to the wood shed and bring wood and kindling down, I will light the stove and then go to the sports centre a mile away and have a shower and hair wash.

Monica
Is the stove a multi fuel? or just wood. I ask because we used Extracite on ours and could keep it going for 3 days.