Back to the cold old days with no boiler

Columnist John Nurden fails to get to grips with boilers, bleeding keys and baffling copper pipework in the loft. And ends up boiling a kettle

It’s funny how we rely on our home comforts. Take central heating for instance. There was a time when none of us had it. The most we had was a coal fire and a rug on the lino. In winter it was so bitter ice even formed on the inside of the windows.

We went to sleep early, snuggling under the eiderdown with a hot water bottle.

Getting up was like climbing Everest. We spent ages plucking up the courage to put a toe out of bed.

Then it was a dash to the bathroom and lots of shivers as the hot water took ages to reach the taps. If you were lucky someone else would have been up before you and kicked the fire back into life.

I mention this because last weekend Cobweb Castle returned to the Ice Age.

It arrived with that ominous clanking sound from the boiler which sends shivers up the spine of every house-owner. Then it gave way to juddering and then silence.

The boiler turned itself off and went into hibernation.

Central heating has a mind of its own but you can usually coax it back to life by bleeding the radiators.

So I scurried about the house with my brass bleed screw listening for the soothing noise of air escaping with a hiss to let more water in. Downstairs was no problem.

But the upstairs radiators weren’t playing ball-cock. There was nothing, not even a pif.

I locked myself away where Mrs Nurden couldn’t see and consulted the oracle – the Readers’ Digest Book of DIY.

Surely it was pay-back time? But no, it didn’t help.

So I turned to the one person we all call in times of crisis – Mr Google. I typed in “radiators won’t bleed” and was shocked to find 13,400 results.

Many suggested there was a “blockage” in the feed pipe to the boiler from the header tank in the loft. I clambered through the trap door and realised that even if I could identify where said “blockage” was, I didn’t have the means, the tools or the inclination to get down on my hands and knees and perform a cut and shunt to the pipe-work.

In central heating terms, this was the equivalent of open-heart surgery.

So I relented and called the plumber.

Now all this happened on a Friday evening – the worst possible time for anything to go wrong. Most tradesmen will be long-gone by then and well on their way to their weekend retreat in Cornwall. I texted the plumber but, like GPS, he doesn’t do weekends. He said he could see us next Tuesday.

Which is why we spent four

‘In central heating terms, this was the equivalent of openheart surgery.’

days shivering in the cold and boiling kettles to wash in.

I like to consider this was similar to combat training for the SAS, but Mrs Nurden just glared at the bolshie boiler.

“Why don’t they break down in the summer?” she demanded.

Perhaps a plumber can shed light on this conundrum?

Email your boiler-busting suggestions to jnurden@ thekmgroup.co.uk.