Dear all, I went over my mothers today to fix the wardrobe handles and a clothes hanger on the door that had fallen off! Whilst there I thought I would get some pictures of the paperbark maple from the third story of her house, which I did. For it is not often you see a paperbark, let alone from up high and in such glorious colour! Mother asked if I could bleed the radiators as a few in her house are not working as well as they should be. I have done this and ours hundreds of times as you get any air out of the central heating system and then they work well. However I went through the house and all was well with them until I got to the double one in the top bedroom. As I slightly loosened the screw to bleed it, a huge hiss of air erupted, then a jet of water and I got soaked! So did the carpet and other things. Luckily as I had a jug to catch any drips, the bleed key and the screw flew into that! In 30 seconds it filled up and I could not get my mother as she is a bit deaf and was on the ground floor. and I was on the third. Eventually after I had got a lot of towels from the bathroom, she shouted up the stairs to see if I was alright, this was 30 minutes later. Mother came up and gave me a plastic bucket and that was soon full up as I could not get the screw back in as the pressure was too great. So she rang the Gas Board who fix such things and they did come round very quickly. By the time this nice lady engineer came I had my finger with the key stuck in a radiator for an hour and half. She managed to turn all the water off which was most useful as I could not let it go as there are a lot of electrics in the way. It seems we were lucky as the little screw is a Whitworth and 40 years old being Imperial and not metric. Although she carries metric ones, there is no way you can get Imperial ones anymore. So she sorted it out and I could eventually move my arm and fingers.
This could only happen to me.
Regards.
Neil.
