Another result of the law of unintended consequences

'Another frozen chicken which came home to roost was the crisis confronting many of the eight million homes now heated by condensing boilers, made compulsory by John Prescott in 2005 as a way of reducing Britain’s carbon footprint. What Mr Prescott failed to do was impose, on this tightly regulated industry, any requirement that the pipes to take away the resulting water should not be placed on the outside of buildings. (Responsibility for this crucial system failure has since been passed to the Health and Safety Executive.) The result is that up to a million external pipes froze in December, shutting off the heating.'

More in this Telegraph article by Christopher Booker.