22 Foxhole East

VintageHistorian

Glad we could be of help with the lunch ideas!

f0xh0les

The top inch gets warm, but that is all, so I think it is completely sludged up in there, nothing a draining it and dragging it down 3 flights of stairs, out the patio doors and shoving a garden hose in the end and flushing all the gunk out will not fix,  we had to do it to the living room one over the summer, it is a half hour job - including the boiling of the kettle to make the celebratory cup of tea after it is back on the wall.  You would not believe the sludge that comes out of them!  Totally vile and really thick.

kerri_gt

Lunches sound delicious, what time shall we all come over? Oh darn,  BJ says No (just like Zammo should've said and look what happened there).
Well done on the school work. I really do feel for all the parents who are supposed to be able to magic up electronics for distance learning for each child at the drop of a hat. One of my friends has our old / spare laptop for one of her kids, its just ridiculous. Not the schools or teachers fault, they're having to try and do their jobs with one hand tied behind their backs.
I am on the annaul freezer blitz mission and also have some BNS in there to turn into something,  will likely be thai curry (though I'm not sure i have any limes, 1st world problems eh) or some kind of risotto with goats cheese (some in the freezer and some in the fridge from xmas). 
Hope you manange to sort the rad out - perhaps not having it working would encourage DS1 out of his room more? 🤔

f0xh0les

The Thai butternut squash soup was gorgeous, absolutely lovely - 5 out of 6 liked it, which fell to 4 out of 6 when I said it was BNS.  The 2 dissenters ate half a bowl each and 2 bread rolls.    They have to get used to the idea that not every meal has to be their absolute favourite thing, sometimes, it really is just 'lunch'.   Anyway, there was nothing not to like. 

DH wants to make a Ghanaian curry tonight (there is peanut butter involved) with BNS and lamb-style seitan, so I will stand aside and let him.   We had Xmas pudding and cream for afters, job done, kitchen closed, they will not complain they are hungry between now and curry time

The fog appears to be lifting slightly, not enough that I would be happy driving anywhere in it  - unless it was A&E and only because something was hanging off.    Bitterly cold too, so I have curled up on the sofa and any plans for today may well keep for tomorrow.  I might just have a lazy one for a change.

Trying to make a bare minimum shopping list for Monday night - not as easy as it seems! 

greent

One of our boy's rads is also not working - it's not the valve and it's not sludge - it appears to possibly be a kinked pipe in the wall somewhere.....  we are not taking lumps out of walls to find it in this weather. It's DS3's room and he has a huge tall radiator just outside his bedroom door on the landing - as he sleeps with his door open still this ensures the room is not cold. He is also a total hot-bod and would sleep naked ('cept for boxers) pretty much most of the time, so I am not concerned that he will freeze, given that I've made him wear long PJs and his duvet is a high tog rating Should we get a really big freeze on we have a couple of electric heaters and 1 of those could go in there if necessary   (I didn't have a radiator in my bedroom until my mum moved house when I was 20.... - the house before then only had radiators downstairs (ice inside my windows (single glazed, aluminium framed) was common - as were huge icicles from the outside windowledge) He isn't doing schoolwork in there during the day, though, so isn't in there much to get chilly (his desk is way too cluttered with Leg0!) - he's been working from the dining room this week, but we may try family room next week

This lockdown - like the first one - seems to be an endless round of making food for others and clearing up...

f0xh0les

Have you tried turning off all the radiators in the house except his, and if it then gets hot,  slowly turning the rest of them back on one turn at a time? The higher pressure will dislodge any air bubble anywhere in the system, so the legend goes.  It did get a little bit better when we rebalanced the system, his rad got hotter on the top inch, but the in-pipe is hot, all the way to where it goes into the radiator, so we reckon it is sludged all the way up from the bottom. Anyway, he has the electric radiator, when we get insulation and sarking felt on the roofspace, then he will be complaining about the heat.  

DS3 keeps annoying DS1 by asking him when he is moving out to University so that he can have his room.  Every  meal time. You have to study hard DS1 or it will be another year before I get your room,  Is it this year you are going? etc etc etc. 

DS1 is about to embark on real time tests - they do 20 minutes of lesson- a word document  test is attached they can write their answers on, they submit them, the lesson continues for the last 20 minutes.  This must be the teacher based assessments they will use for the final mark.   The more evidence they can show of the work done in a set time, in set conditions, the better the grade will be. So the hard work starts now.   DS1 is still too laid back about the whole thing.

greenbee

Unfortunately boys tend to be laid back... my brother's school report from his A-level year was along the lines of 'so laid back he's practically horizontal'. He didn't make his grades, but talked his way in to med school anyway... Girls will work hard because the work is there to do. Boys need a reason to work... so if DS1 has a burning ambition to do something he'll be motivated to achieve his grades. If he has no clue what he wants to do and what the point of working is then he won't work. But might do well in his retakes

As for the rads, I've had to do the forcing the air out of the system numerous times during my renovation and it works. And as a child we had no central heating - woodburner in the hall, fire in the smallest room downstairs (I was lucky as the chimney went through my bedroom). Hot water bottles and an oil-filled rad (that I STILL HAVE in the garage) which I hung my clothes on and then leaned out of bed in the morning to turn on. When the clothes were warm I dragged them off and got dressed under the covers... 

twinklie

I think I was a boy...I did shocking at school. 

greent

Weve tried repressurising and that didn't work. When we had the boiler serviced we also had the chap do the valve. He thought it might be stuck internally so we changed the rad and still nothing. So next is a kink in a pipe in the wall  

greenbee

greent said:

Weve tried repressurising and that didn't work. When we had the boiler serviced we also had the chap do the valve. He thought it might be stuck internally so we changed the rad and still nothing. So next is a kink in a pipe in the wall  

make him a hot water bottle and tell him about the old days with ice on the inside of the windows and no duvets