My brother's central heating packed up the other day. His BG service
contract stated 24 hour service - but they reckoned it would be three
days. His wife was removing her boots before coming into the house and
noticed icicles on the condensate drain. So poured boiling water over it
and the boiler started up immediately.

It was -20 that night...

--
*Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:06:28 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

My brother's central heating packed up the other day. His BG service
contract stated 24 hour service - but they reckoned it would be three
days. His wife was removing her boots before coming into the house

Just having taken a bale of hay and a bucket of water down to the
local "leisure centre" ???

and
noticed icicles on the condensate drain. So poured boiling water over it
and the boiler started up immediately.

It was -20 that night...

Derek

In article ,
Owain wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
My brother's central heating packed up the other day. His BG service
contract stated 24 hour service - but they reckoned it would be three
days. His wife was removing her boots before coming into the house and
noticed icicles on the condensate drain. So poured boiling water over
it and the boiler started up immediately. It was -20 that night...

I'm surprised an Aberdonian would pay for a BG service contract

He did well out of it with the previous Potterton Envoy. Over 1000 quids
worth of repairs for each of the five years he had it before giving in and
getting a better make.

--
*He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, dead.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Derek Geldard wrote:
My brother's central heating packed up the other day. His BG service
contract stated 24 hour service - but they reckoned it would be three
days. His wife was removing her boots before coming into the house

Just having taken a bale of hay and a bucket of water down to the
local "leisure centre" ???

No. Just taking the dog out in thick snow. I suppose your wife would keep
on her stilettos? ;-)

--
*In "Casablanca", Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam" *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
My brother's central heating packed up the other day. His BG service
contract stated 24 hour service - but they reckoned it would be three
days. His wife was removing her boots before coming into the house and
noticed icicles on the condensate drain. So poured boiling water over it
and the boiler started up immediately.

Had the same problem in Sussex a couple of weeks back. A quick visit to the
Worcester web site identified the problem and following thie advice to lag
the pipe cured it.

It was -20 that night...

Not below -5 down here.

Colin Bignell

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
My brother's central heating packed up the other day. His BG service
contract stated 24 hour service - but they reckoned it would be three
days. His wife was removing her boots before coming into the house and
noticed icicles on the condensate drain. So poured boiling water over it
and the boiler started up immediately.

It was -20 that night...

--

What do they put on the roads? Rock salt only works down to -8.

In Slovakia where -20 could be seen as warm they used some sort of ash.

Adam

wrote:
On 12 Feb,
"ARWadsworth" wrote:

What do they put on the roads? Rock salt only works down to -8.

In Slovakia where -20 could be seen as warm they used some sort of ash.

The problem here if that it is still warm enough for the ice to melt under
pressure, making it slippy. If it is cold enough this doesn't happen under
the pressures caused by tyres. Thus -20 would be safer than -2.


There is a whole issue about rads that run in severe subzero.

One is, don't tarmac them., They crack up with ice.

Another is don't grit them. Its a waste of time since the ability to
melt really cold snow is not that great. Also studded tyres wont rip the
road or themselves to pieces on snow.

A third is, let people get used to driving on raw snow, and buy vehicles
and tyres that can cope.

In this country, we hover around zero, and it both makes ice more likely
than snow, and salt grit a possible deicer, as well as making people
never get used to snow, or have proper vehicles with 4WD and M&S tyres
that can drive on it safely at reasonable speeds.

So we fall apart.

The Freelander even on road tyres has been fine up to 30mph on sheet
ice, and a fair bit more on fresh snow. Who needs grit?

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:32:59 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

wrote:
On 12 Feb,
"ARWadsworth" wrote:

What do they put on the roads? Rock salt only works down to -8.

In Slovakia where -20 could be seen as warm they used some sort of ash.

The problem here if that it is still warm enough for the ice to melt under
pressure, making it slippy. If it is cold enough this doesn't happen under
the pressures caused by tyres. Thus -20 would be safer than -2.


There is a whole issue about rads that run in severe subzero.

One is, don't tarmac them., They crack up with ice.

Yep, they're forever filling cracks over here during the summer - then by
the following year they have to start all over again. Makes for an
interesting pattern on the road surface, though :-) (they seem to do a
good enough job of construction that the whole surface doesn't simply
lift, however)

Another is don't grit them. Its a waste of time since the ability to
melt really cold snow is not that great.

Here they do seem to do it once in a while, but think it's more a case
of them having the gritting capability on the back of the plough
trucks, so they "may as well". It doesn't seem to do much good,
although I suppose a bit if grit thrown in the with ice might do
something for traction (slightly!).

Also studded tyres wont rip the road or themselves to pieces on snow.

I think they're illegal here - certainly chains are. Too many idiots using
them in the wrong conditions and destroying the road surface, I believe.

A third is, let people get used to driving on raw snow, and buy vehicles
and tyres that can cope.

Yep. Block heaters and snow tyres are very common... and of course keeping
emergency provisions and blankets and a snow shovel in the boot in case
you do get stuck :-)

In this country, we hover around zero, and it both makes ice more likely
than snow, and salt grit a possible deicer, as well as making people
never get used to snow

As I said elsewhere, I've found that people are just as idiotic
anywhere for the first few days of snow - then they more or less adapt.
Problem with the UK of course being that the snow never lasts long enough
for them to do the 'adapt' bit.

Who needs grit?

People who drive a Prius or Smart car? *runs*

cheers

J.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
The Freelander even on road tyres has been fine up to 30mph on sheet
ice, and a fair bit more on fresh snow. Who needs grit?

It will likely have more grip for starting off than a car, being four
wheel drive, but also likely to have more difficulty stopping...

--
*This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for extra security *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

In this country, we hover around zero, and it both makes ice more likely
than snow, and salt grit a possible deicer, as well as making people
never get used to snow, or have proper vehicles with 4WD and M&S tyres
that can drive on it safely at reasonable speeds.

So we fall apart.

My parents recently retired back to the UK after a few years working in
Moscow. They brought their car back with them, together with its winter
tyres.

Mum says she's been getting evil looks (of the "you're a dangerous
nutter who's about to kill themselves" variety) in the recent snow, as
she tools past people on her studded tyres and Russian driving skills :-)

Pete

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
The Freelander even on road tyres has been fine up to 30mph on sheet
ice, and a fair bit more on fresh snow. Who needs grit?

It will likely have more grip for starting off than a car, being four
wheel drive, but also likely to have more difficulty stopping...


Its no better and no worse with its ABS. Definitely better than the
camper! I slid 15 feet past the gate in that one..and couldn't reverse
back..had to go on until it found some traction.


actually its a very good balance between 'car comfort' and 'genuine,
poor surface, grip'

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Pete Verdon
d saying something
like:

Mum says she's been getting evil looks (of the "you're a dangerous
nutter who's about to kill themselves" variety) in the recent snow, as
she tools past people on her studded tyres and Russian driving skills :-)

As a driver who was brought up in snowy Scottish conditions, I was
utterly amazed at the outraged response to me sailing past a slow
doddering trilby-hatted Volvo driver near Northampton.
There was I having the temerity to actually overtake some pillar of the
community who was driving 'safely' at 25mph on the inside lane of a
wide-open dual carriageway with absolutely no traffic on the outside
lane and no tyre tracks on the 2" snow, either.

He was sounding his horn and shaking his fist at me as if I'd just raped
his dog.

"Grimly Curmudgeon" wrote in message
...
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Pete Verdon
d saying something
like:

Mum says she's been getting evil looks (of the "you're a dangerous
nutter who's about to kill themselves" variety) in the recent snow, as
she tools past people on her studded tyres and Russian driving skills :-)

As a driver who was brought up in snowy Scottish conditions, I was
utterly amazed at the outraged response to me sailing past a slow
doddering trilby-hatted Volvo driver near Northampton.
There was I having the temerity to actually overtake some pillar of the
community who was driving 'safely' at 25mph on the inside lane of a
wide-open dual carriageway with absolutely no traffic on the outside
lane and no tyre tracks on the 2" snow, either.

He was sounding his horn and shaking his fist at me as if I'd just raped
his dog.

People darn sarf can't drive in snow. It's just one those facts of life.
When I lived in Aberdeen you got used to driving in snow pretty damn quick
or you ended up in a ditch. Back in 1978, or maybe 1979, when I was still
living near London we had quite a bad winter and the roads were snowed up
for days. I was still getting about on a motorbike back then and I drove in
to work in appaling conditions from Chorleywood to Harrow without any issues
when everyone with cars was crashing like crazy. One guy at work came in
Monday with his car bent out of shape down both sides. He'd set out from
home on Sunday morning to buy a newspaper and slid off the road within 50
yards at the first bend into a parked milk float and crumpled the driver's
side of the car. I kid you not, he left a note on the milk float, went to
the shop, bought the paper and slid off the road into the same milk float
again on the way back and crumpled the passenger side of the car. Laugh, I
nearly did.

Anyway one really bad morning my manager phoned up and asked me if I wanted
a lift into work in his Cavalier given how bad the roads were. So he picked
me up, we got all the way to Harrow bar the last half a mile which was down
a steep hill which he entered too fast, (too fast only being about 20 mph
but still) couldn't slow down and skidded into the back of a car waiting at
the foot of it and stuffed the front end of his car.

I thought bugger this for a game of soldiers and went back to riding the
bike in. It was interesting to say the least riding a road bike on road
tyres on packed snow but I never fell off and I reckon if you can manage
that then driving a car in the same conditions ought to be piece of ****. I
eventually graduated to cars, a MK1 Escort estate in the first instance, and
managed to get around in deep snow up even fairly steep hills by the simple
expedient of pulling the handbrake half on to act as a poor man's limited
slip diff. That stops one tyre from spinning madly if it loses grip while
the other one drags you up. All you need is a high gear, not too much
throttle and try and maintain momentum.
--
Dave Baker

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
The Freelander even on road tyres has been fine up to 30mph on sheet
ice, and a fair bit more on fresh snow. Who needs grit?

It will likely have more grip for starting off than a car, being four
wheel drive, but also likely to have more difficulty stopping...

--
*This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for extra security *





Cyclist are good for getting extra traction.

mark

In article ,
Dave Baker wrote:
I thought bugger this for a game of soldiers and went back to riding the
bike in. It was interesting to say the least riding a road bike on road
tyres on packed snow but I never fell off and I reckon if you can
manage that then driving a car in the same conditions ought to be piece
of ****. I eventually graduated to cars, a MK1 Escort estate in the
first instance, and managed to get around in deep snow up even fairly
steep hills by the simple expedient of pulling the handbrake half on to
act as a poor man's limited slip diff. That stops one tyre from
spinning madly if it loses grip while the other one drags you up. All
you need is a high gear, not too much throttle and try and maintain
momentum.

Best car I ever had for snow etc was a pre-war Austin 7. Large wheels and
skinny tyres. Good ground clearance. Good weight distribution. Poor brakes
and no power. Ideal for Scottish winter roads. But not the winters - no
heater.

--
*"I am " is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Pete Verdon
d saying something
like:

Mum says she's been getting evil looks (of the "you're a dangerous
nutter who's about to kill themselves" variety) in the recent snow, as
she tools past people on her studded tyres and Russian driving skills :-)

As a driver who was brought up in snowy Scottish conditions, I was
utterly amazed at the outraged response to me sailing past a slow
doddering trilby-hatted Volvo driver near Northampton.
There was I having the temerity to actually overtake some pillar of the
community who was driving 'safely' at 25mph on the inside lane of a
wide-open dual carriageway with absolutely no traffic on the outside
lane and no tyre tracks on the 2" snow, either.

He was sounding his horn and shaking his fist at me as if I'd just raped
his dog.

What you have to remember here, is that a Volvo driver does not follow
the same highway code that we do and the mere fact that he has bought a
Volvo tells you he is stupid.

Dave

In message , Grimly
Curmudgeon writes
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Pete Verdon
id saying something
like:

Mum says she's been getting evil looks (of the "you're a dangerous
nutter who's about to kill themselves" variety) in the recent snow, as
she tools past people on her studded tyres and Russian driving skills :-)

As a driver who was brought up in snowy Scottish conditions, I was
utterly amazed at the outraged response to me sailing past a slow
doddering trilby-hatted Volvo driver near Northampton.
There was I having the temerity to actually overtake some pillar of the
community who was driving 'safely' at 25mph on the inside lane of a
wide-open dual carriageway with absolutely no traffic on the outside
lane and no tyre tracks on the 2" snow, either.

He was sounding his horn and shaking his fist at me as if I'd just raped
his dog.

You met dennis ?


--
geoff

Dave Baker wrote:

People darn sarf can't drive in snow. It's just one those facts of life.
When I lived in Aberdeen you got used to driving in snow pretty damn quick
or you ended up in a ditch. Back in 1978, or maybe 1979, when I was still
living near London we had quite a bad winter and the roads were snowed up
for days. I was still getting about on a motorbike back then and I drove in
to work in appaling conditions from Chorleywood to Harrow without any issues
when everyone with cars was crashing like crazy. One guy at work came in
Monday with his car bent out of shape down both sides. He'd set out from
home on Sunday morning to buy a newspaper and slid off the road within 50
yards at the first bend into a parked milk float and crumpled the driver's
side of the car. I kid you not, he left a note on the milk float, went to
the shop, bought the paper and slid off the road into the same milk float
again on the way back and crumpled the passenger side of the car. Laugh, I
nearly did.

Anyway one really bad morning my manager phoned up and asked me if I wanted
a lift into work in his Cavalier given how bad the roads were. So he picked
me up, we got all the way to Harrow bar the last half a mile which was down
a steep hill which he entered too fast, (too fast only being about 20 mph
but still) couldn't slow down and skidded into the back of a car waiting at
the foot of it and stuffed the front end of his car.

I thought bugger this for a game of soldiers and went back to riding the
bike in. It was interesting to say the least riding a road bike on road
tyres on packed snow but I never fell off and I reckon if you can manage
that then driving a car in the same conditions ought to be piece of ****. I
eventually graduated to cars, a MK1 Escort estate in the first instance, and
managed to get around in deep snow up even fairly steep hills by the simple
expedient of pulling the handbrake half on to act as a poor man's limited
slip diff. That stops one tyre from spinning madly if it loses grip while
the other one drags you up. All you need is a high gear, not too much
throttle and try and maintain momentum.

All you say above is very true and accurate. Using the handbrake has got
me up a hill many a time.

Dave

In message , Dave Baker
writes

"Grimly Curmudgeon" wrote in message
.. .
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Pete Verdon
d saying something
like:

Mum says she's been getting evil looks (of the "you're a dangerous
nutter who's about to kill themselves" variety) in the recent snow, as
she tools past people on her studded tyres and Russian driving skills :-)

As a driver who was brought up in snowy Scottish conditions, I was
utterly amazed at the outraged response to me sailing past a slow
doddering trilby-hatted Volvo driver near Northampton.
There was I having the temerity to actually overtake some pillar of the
community who was driving 'safely' at 25mph on the inside lane of a
wide-open dual carriageway with absolutely no traffic on the outside
lane and no tyre tracks on the 2" snow, either.

He was sounding his horn and shaking his fist at me as if I'd just raped
his dog.

People darn sarf can't drive in snow.

Buggroff

when you can scare the ****s out of Austrians, you can talk


--
geoff

"Dave" wrote in message
...
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Pete Verdon
d saying something
like:


He was sounding his horn and shaking his fist at me as if I'd just raped
his dog.

What you have to remember here, is that a Volvo driver does not follow the
same highway code that we do and the mere fact that he has bought a Volvo
tells you he is stupid.


You could be right about Volvo drivers:

A parked Lada is hit by the Volvo and lands on a Mondeo which goes a 100m
down the road.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/conte... 08:07:51:310


mark

geoff wrote:
In message , Grimly
Curmudgeon writes
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Pete Verdon
d saying something
like:

Mum says she's been getting evil looks (of the "you're a dangerous
nutter who's about to kill themselves" variety) in the recent snow, as
she tools past people on her studded tyres and Russian driving skills
:-)

As a driver who was brought up in snowy Scottish conditions, I was
utterly amazed at the outraged response to me sailing past a slow
doddering trilby-hatted Volvo driver near Northampton.
There was I having the temerity to actually overtake some pillar of the
community who was driving 'safely' at 25mph on the inside lane of a
wide-open dual carriageway with absolutely no traffic on the outside
lane and no tyre tracks on the 2" snow, either.

He was sounding his horn and shaking his fist at me as if I'd just raped
his dog.

You met dennis ?

Oh, come on. That is another key board to dry out :-(

Dave

mark wrote:
"Dave" wrote in message
...
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Pete Verdon
d saying something
like:

He was sounding his horn and shaking his fist at me as if I'd just raped
his dog.
What you have to remember here, is that a Volvo driver does not follow the
same highway code that we do and the mere fact that he has bought a Volvo
tells you he is stupid.


You could be right about Volvo drivers:

A parked Lada is hit by the Volvo and lands on a Mondeo which goes a 100m
down the road.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/conte... 08:07:51:310

But that is a very sad story.

Dave