And the freeze goes on

Charnizay dans 'Le grand Froid'

Looked at the calendar today and saw that we've been having these sub-zero temperatures since 31st January. Every day it has been -2C or lower and several times now our night-time temperatures have fallen below -10C. We've been on orange alert for extreme cold since Wednesday, and 'Le Grand Froid' continues to be headline news on the 8pm bulletin.

Having lived through winters in Toronto and Oslo where the sidewalks disappear in November and only re-emerge in April, this cold spell is no big deal. Except that nothing here is geared to that type of weather. Houses often have thin walls, no central heating and tiled floors. Not a problem for the odd cold snap of a day or so; but definitely not good right now.

view down the Aigronne valley

We are lucky. Our house is an old stone built farmhouse, so the walls are thick, which helps in this very cold spell. Some of our windows are, however, single glazed which is less cozy; and the odd eddy of freezing air curls round an ankle or neck. Still, a hermetically sealed house is not healthy either. We have shutters, the newer windows and the double door in the kitchen are double glazed. In addition, our roof is well insulated.

So, thankfully, we are comfortable and the heating does its job well. The wood burning stove in the living room belts out the heat and, as it is so cold, the central heating is on in a number of rooms as well.

our chemin looking towards the direction of the village

However, several days ago we suddenly found we had no water in the downstairs shower-room which also houses the washing machine. The bathroom upstairs and kitchen remained unaffected so it was a case of 'hunt the frozen bit of pipe'.

We have two sources of hot water:- a combi boiler in the kitchen which provides the CH, hot water in the kitchen and the guest bathroom upstairs. However, as this is a longere [literally 'long house'] we have an immersion heater in the barn which supplies our en-suite and the shower-room downstairs; a 50/50 arrangement so to speak.

So off into the barn we went armed with flashlight, hairdryer, small fan heater and bubble wrap. 90% of the pipes are safely tucked up in black foam lagging but here and there there are some gaps. The problem was we had no idea which bits might have frozen--we are not DIY people, a fact we readily acknowledge. Deciding to operate on simple logic we tackled one bit of exposed pipe at a time and then carefully wrapped it in bubble wrap, which makes excellent insulating material.

busy cat 'superhighway'

All this took a while, with trips back and forth to see if our efforts were having any effect on the shower-room. Finally we had a result, a tiny trickle out of the tap. Another hour later the water was flowing freely again. Just to be thorough we also treated the other exposed bits.

It looks like we have been very fortunate. We don't seem to have a leak and no pipes have re-frozen.