I hope someone can help, I've been freezing my arse off for the last week :-}
I have a Saunier Duvall SD620F combi boiler. The central heating pressure gauge is reading zero and the little documentation I have on it says it needs to be refilled by a qualified engineer. Thing is though I'm out of work and engineers charge more per hour than I get in a week. Can anyone tell me what valves or taps need to turned to fill it back up ? I've bled the radiators and there was a heck of a lot of air in one of them, but it hasn't made any difference. The central heating timer's been switched off for a couple of days but the pilot light is still lit. There's no running hot water either, goes without saying I suppose.
There should be a flexible hose somewhere on your system. Either under the boiler or somewhere along the pipework. If it isn't already linked up, relink it & open the tap until the pressure on your boiler reads just over 1 Bar. Re-bleed your rads & if the pressure has dropped again, repressurize to just over 1 bar again. You might have to do this a couple of times over the next couple of weeks as the hydrogen is driven out of the fresh water you have introduced into the system.
You need to go down the unemployment office and explain your circumstances. They can pay for an engineer to provide you and your family with heating, it's one of those rights which you have to plead for.
Thanks very much man :) The pipe actually had two taps, one labelled Failsafe Valve and the other was labelled Filling Valve (hit my head and call me Shorty!). I opened both of them about a quarter turn, a bit of gurgling and clanking later the pressure gauge read roughly 1.5 (it's tiny, hard to see exact). Then I closed both the valves again. Was this the right thing to do or should I leave them open slightly ?
Seriously ?? I never knew that. Is there anywhere you can enquire about these things ? Or is it a case of going down to the Job Center and filling in every application form they've got ? :)
Absolutely spot on. I had a cousin (no relation to me under the circumstances....) who was married to a ne'er-do-well (actually, a ne'er-do-any-work). They survived entirely from the handouts offered by the job centre and/or social services. Given cheques totalling several hundred pounds to cover purchase of things like a new oven and so on. B'stards, should've chucked him out on his ear or given him a job of work in the job centre emptying the litter bins or something.
Every citizen of this country (including the illegal immigrants who have never paid a penny in tax or NI) has a right to basic necessities such as food and lodging. With lodging comes the need to heat the premises to make it liveable and basic services. Obviously when the weather is comfortable it's a non-issue, but as we get into the winter months then it is necessary to heat the house or flat. Social services will pay for that, because the fallout of having someone who is supposed to be under their care dying of hyperthermia is something they will wish to avoid at all costs.
Extracting the money from them is another matter entirely. They have this game called "it's our money so sod off!". You have to counter their arguments with strong reason "okay, well my wife and baby are dying from the cold, who's name should we leave on the note?".
One thing to remember about this situation is that if you do manage to get money out of them (and it is possible), that money is taxable. So if you go and get a job during the tax year which takes you over the minimum band limit you then get to pay tax on the money that was provided to you. Which is another reason why people who have fallen on hard times find that it can be lucrative not being employed.
Note: I haven't been thru the above experience, I was told that by someone who was familiar with the circumstances.
Close them again, but keep an eye on the pressure in case you have a leak in the system somewhere, or the pressure relief valve is blowing off. + Don't forget to bleed the rads over the next week or two (usually the nearest to the boiler is the most affected).
Also, water regs say you should leave the pipe disconnected to stop your radiator water getting into the drinking supply. It would also stop your system getting overpressured if the valve on the tap failed.
You don't get such grants from the Job Centre directly but the first step is to get income-related Job seekers allowance. To get this you have to sign on every 2 weeks. From this other benefits such as income support and housing benefits will flow. If you have any kind of savings of a few £k, or your partner has or is working then you won't get any of these.
If you're incapable of work due to some disability then you should claim the benefit appropriate to that, these are medically investigated.
That is exactly right. In fact I thought that they recently changed the rules so that the sign-on was every week?
It's worse than that even. If you have children and the grandparents have given them sizeable funds for their building society accounts then the terms are that you have to spend that money before you go claiming off the state.
Having been thru claiming the dole (or JSA as it is today) a couple of times this is a fiendish exercise at best - you get treated like a criminal for claiming JSA, assumed to be a no-gooder who doesn't want to work.
Interestingly, if you have money in shares then you don't have to own up to it when you claim JSA. They crawl all over your bank and building society accounts, but not shares. Little wonder that better off people get preferential treatment compared with the average guy on the street!
For sure. And I understand it can be a long and painful (literally perhaps!) process to get awarded anything. Their starting position is that you are fit for work and it is for you to disprove that.
Yes you do. You have to declare all negotiable valuables such as money in bank/BS accounts property and shares. Includes money you have in your pocket too. I've been through this a few times since being made redundant in 96.
Indeed. I'm disabled but not sufficiently so to make me incapable of *any* work. But if you have a health problem you can kiss goodbye to regular work unless the employer is desperate. Fortunately my pension matures in a few years time so they can stuff it.
-- Alan G "The corporate life [of society] must be subservient to the lives of the parts instead of the lives of the parts being subservient to the corporate life." (Herbert Spencer)
Here one way of getting grants towards heating systems if you fall within certain categories.
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will even go as far as fitting a new boiler if yours is "not working" although this can take 3 months so you maybe don't want to start a claim this time year. What happens is a "surveyor" comes to your home and first checks your entitlement. Then he ask you about the heating , cavity wall insulation etc. Seems to take your word for whatever you tell them. Then sometime later contractors fit cavity wall & loft (to enormous thickness) insulation, window draft excluders etc and eventually new boiler if you're lucky. NB contractors are not interested if old boiler is really u/s as its in their interest to change it anyway. All for nothing... Oh, and they send you a big box of quite decent low energy light bulbs...
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