It is estimated that as many as 5.9 million homes were given an average repair bill of £343, a home emergency and repair firm, revealed.

The research further suggested that only 21%, or one in five of those households, were insured for the emergency. This means that approximately 4,779,000 households were uninsured. This means that about 472,000 of those who were hit by the disastrous weather cannot afford the repair costs.

The average cost for a boiler repair service, of which there were an astonishing 2.2 million during the freezing weather, was approximately £351.

That headline grabbing figure represents that approximately 9%, or one in ten, UK households which was the most common problem.

Approximately 1.24 million households lost their central heat, which represents about 5% of all homes in the UK, and had an average repair bill of £294. Similarly, a total of nearly 1.24 million households also had to deal with serious water leaks, and the cost to repair them was approximately as an average of £242.

Approximately 4%, or nearly one million households, also had pipes that burst, which cost the average homeowner an average of £31 to repair.

The most expensive repair was the result of damage to their roofs which also caught approximately 4%, or 999,000 households, off guard damage and resulted in a cost an average of about £546 to repair. .

About 42% of the people living in the North East suffered home emergencies during the freezing weather.

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