Sorry for your loss Tony, take care of yourself.
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Yesterday evening I noticed that my smart meter was showing no gas usage, and on checking my boiler had chosen this week to fail. The engineer is due between 12 and 6 today. I’ve not been in the house a month yet, the boiler is a 20 year old model so it was on my list to replace, but I was hoping to get through the winter before needing to.Fortunately I’d found 3 fan heaters during my half-completed unpacking so I am not freezing.
On the positive side the Openreach engineer’s van pulled up outside a few minutes ago, so hopefully the newly installed (15th December) fibre broadband which fell over Sunday evening will be fixed soon.
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Hope your boiler gets fixed and you can be comfortably warm again.
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Replacing a boiler is often an easy task to do, in my case the engineer was done in a few hours including refilling the entire system and all sorts of checks. It is also a huge cost and environmental saving since modern boilers are usually much more efficient.
But I guess you already knew that 
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Good luck there with the boiler, hopefully it is fixable. At 20 years it would be well into borrowed time. From my (recent) experience you will feel better (and toastier) when it is replaced !
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Tail end of flu. Time to bring the Christmas cards and decorations down.
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Had a French MOT booked for today. Braved the frost and ice on our local hilly, twisty road to get on to the salted main road. Arrived at the test station and the guy says oh, we didn’t think anyone would be out in this. 
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I ventured tentatively to the end of the drive to bring the brown bin back down the side of the house. Don’t anticipate going out again until football on Friday.
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Time for a heat pump Eoin!!
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I know, although it might mean changing all the piping.
If you have microbore pipes it will be a problem, but we had ours done as a retrofit on our 1983 house and all we needed was one larger radiator. And space for the massive hot water tank of course. It’s great to be able to heat the house without fossil fuels too, and for much of the year to be able to heat the house using solar. It’s certainly worth looking into.
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Hi Eoin
As you may know I’m a renewables fan. I’d suggest not rushing into replacing the boiler until you can consider the best way forward. It will depend a lot on the EPC which I guess your seller provided. If it is C or better then definitely worth considering a heat pump. If you have an EV and solar+battery your electric will be 7p/kWh on Octopus Intelligent GO or circa 15p on Cosy for 8 hours.
I’m on iGO with all the stuff and draw very little peak rate electric so even in freezing conditions the ASHP cost less than 2.5p/kWh of heat produced (120kWh of heat produced yesterday for a 300 sq metres floor area).
Phil
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Hopefully an easy fix. A common issue in these freezing conditions is a frozen condensate pipe which can happen if the condensate piping has not been installed properly and will stop the boiler working. Certainly worth looking at options to replace the boiler with a heat pump, but get a good installer who can assess your property and existing system correctly and advise appropriately.
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Finished this yesterday. We enjoyed doing to Beatles Abbey Road jigsaw puzzle over Christmas so ordered this one, Sgt Pepper, for New Year. Sgt Pepper was definitely the easier of the two.
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So sorry to read of your loss, Tony. Take care.
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Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of choice. The pump and the heat exchanger have gone, there is at least one leak, and he won’t power it up because he suspects CO. So it’s new boiler if I can find an installer who’ll do it quickly, waiting for the changes needed to go heat pump will leave me without heating or hot water during the whole cold snap.
If I’m stuck with no chance of a boiler in the next week then I’ll take the time. It’s a bummer as I was hoping to get through winter, unpacking and sort the house before having to make a decision.
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Mad dogs and Englishman…….
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Sorry to hear this - the failed boiler issue happened to me too in Nov, just after annual servicing (clogged up with solids). I’d only just had a new pump installed too - Sod’s Law. Fortunately, my regular service people are great and installed a new Worcester Bosch LPG boiler unit and Magnaclean within the month. Good luck - you will feel better once it is done !