After my experience with our central heating breaking down last Friday night, I can confirm that it isn’t a pleasant experience to spend 24 hours without heating in the company of two sniffly children, a whingey husband and a dog who hates the cold!
I did learn a few things from my experience though and I thought you’d be grateful for my little pearls of wisdom so you’ll know exactly what to do when the heating isn’t working in your house.
First of all, hot chocolate can pretty much stop all whinging immediately so make sure you always have some in your cupboard. Squirty cream and marshmallows help a lot too.
(I know I used this photo the other day but I don’t think you can ever have too many gratuitous shots of hot chocolate 😉
Secondly, if you don’t have boiler insurance (which I now strongly recommend and will be getting myself) you can expect to have to go through your phonebook and be told that everyone’s busy for at least a day or two – including those who offer 24 hour emergency call out! Pretty much the only people who you can get to come out straight away will charge you the earth because they know you’re desperate. Most quotes we got were £129 upwards from the larger firms who have someone available straight away. More expensive as it was weekend AND after hours but still! As it was the people we booked for the small fortune rang us up to tell us that they couldn’t make it until Monday as they were held up at their previous job which was turning into a disaster apparently and by some miracle we then somehow managed to get through to a lovely one man business and someone was with us within the hour for £40 so please, please ring around – no matter how desperate you are!
And if you do have to spend time with no heating you need to make sure that you retain every single degree of heat that you can in the house. Close all curtains and blinds and make sure that any draught, no matter how small, is blocked. Mr Frugal even put towels down in front of our front and back doors to try and keep as much heat in as possible.
My next suggestion would be blankets – lots of!
We brought all our blankets downstairs and snuggled up watching movies until bedtime and as long as you don’t need to leave the warmth of the blanket for a toilet break and you’re not sent to a kitchen as cold as Siberia to make more hot chocolate, you’ll be fine snuggled up under them.
A hot water bottle under your quilt before bedtime will make getting into bed a much nicer experience and if you’ve only got one, just stagger bedtimes a little bit. Even five minutes under the quilt is enough to take the chill off.
There’s lots of tips here to keep warm without heating that might help you a little bit as well.
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We can fetch durable central heating parts and repair your heating system, so you may sip your hot coffee with family and friends in a cosy environment, and stay relaxed.
Blankets are welcome whether or not the heating isn't working! 😉
I'm glad you have it all working again now.
Our boiler packed up last winter and I was grateful we had insurance & good roof lagging !
It did surprise me that they wouldn't prioritise us with a little one as he was just over one year old.
I keep blankets in every room & close all the doors to keep heat in, it's a habit now. Glad you're all toastie again now 🙂
This is my biggest fear … I think my first instinct would be to pack our stuff and go and stay with Granny!!!
We bought an electric heater while on holiday in a freezing cold caravan…we now keep it as back up in case we're without heating.
We're in rented housing at the moment but we're currently in the process of buying our own house and we'll be getting insurance asap!
Glad you had lots of blankets and hot chocolate to hand. Insurance was recommended here by my friend whose husband is a gas engineer,
Poor you, I think I would have been straight out to stock up on hot water bottles!
Hubby was talking yesterday about being able to heat the room with a tea light and terracotta plantpots? Might be worth a look, apparently they are really good and one tea light can heat a room. Not only handy when the boiler goes, but could help cut down on gas bills! We’re going to invest some time to see if it works!
Your hubby looks grumpy all covered with the blankets 🙂
Oh no, didn't realise you lost your heating! Argh. Great tips here!
Soup is great when you're without heating as it's very warming. Also, it's worth having an "emergency" heater stashed away – we have one we sometimes use for the conservatory, which we bring into the lounge and just heat that room; it's a convector heater. Also, when you do get boiler insurance (I consider it essential, it's saved me a small fortune more than once), do ring around. I have cover with a local company who are cheaper than British Gas, more reliable (and easier to get out quickly in the event of a breakdown) and service/check my boiler over once a year. It keeps it running well – the only thing that has gone wrong with my boiler has actually been the main circuit board, everything else has run fine its whole life!
tempting me with that hot chocolate yet again!! x
That hot chocolate looks epic! I've never seen chocolate spray cream. Still doesn't make the situation better, I guess, but your tips are great. The hot water bottle would have been my first idea too x
Glad you got your boiler fixed – and great tip re getting insurance for it. And the hot chocolate looks tasty too.
Just goes to show how much you can save by ringing around, hopefully you can buy yourself something lovely with the money that you saved… maybe some extra blankets in case it happens again
I loved your recommendation for chocolate, LOL. When I sitll lived iwth my parnets, our heating was down at lest a few times every winter. Usually though it started working again afer an hour or so.
We do push ups and challenge each other to see who can do the most. My youngest sits his 3 stone self on my husband's back to make things a little more even. I have a kettlebell handy that I swing with intent during the day when it's just me at home and I'm cold. I remove a layer, lift some weights, then put my cardie back on to keep me toasty.