UK - gas boilers stop working - FROZEN CONDENSATE PIPES.

Investigation: why so many boilers froze

Global cooling?

When the cold freezes the pipes that drain condensation from boilers - the boilers switch off.

"The London firm Pimlico Plumbers, owned by Charlie Mullins, the high-profile Tory donor and anti-Brexit campaigner, did record business, taking 25,485 calls in the peak week and making 900 visits on the busiest day, at charges ranging from a minimum of £100 to £220 for callouts after midnight."

"Ahead of the “big freeze” of 2010, the Department of Health and Social Care forecast as many as 30,000 additional deaths."

Since 2005, every new gas boiler installed in the UK must be a condensing model.

They produce up to two litres an hour of acidic water, known as condensate, which must be carried away as waste in a non-corroding pipe.

Ideally, this condensate pipe should empty directly into the waste water system, inside the property.

In some countries, including Germany, where many of the boilers are manufactured, this is the only permitted method of installation. 

In Britain, however, the condensate pipe can be run down the outside of the wall.
Investigation: why so many boilers froze