Fun with water - share your water turnoff stories

[Opti]

Sigh. Its the second time in three days and my water is off again.

Please share your water turnoff stories to cheer me up.

 

I think this time its not the usual culprits as things have been added to the memo list

like wipes and sanitary pads that haven't been there before. Hopefully I'll have water again by 10PM.

Not too long ago at work, we had an issue where the plumber pumped up quite a few wash clothes and gloves.

I thought that was crazy, but one CNA told me she had it  seen happen elsewhere.

[Opti]

The latter part sounds like a usual episode of Hoarders.

I'm looking to be cheered up or at least laugh!

[resolution]

We've only run out of water once so far, about a year ago. We have a rain water catchment system, and didn't pay attention to the lack of rain. Normally we keep an eye on it and if we run low we call the guy with the water truck to come out and fill us up.

So I was in the shower when the water pressure died, got dressed and started pumping water from the backup cistern to the main one. Then tried to use the water but the pump had to be primed. Tried to prime the pump and it wouldn't prime. So DH had to come home from work and take apart the pump inside the cistern. Fortunately he had the pump running again by the time the water guy showed up, so we had water again within a few hours, but it pretty much wrecked my morning.

Now I am a lot more conscious of the rain and keeping track of the cistern level. I really hated flushing with a bucket of water instead of the toilet lever.

[Deleted]

When we built the house that my daughter lives in, we had a friend (male) who worked with my husband. Bob spent every weekend with us. I know it was strange, but he was something of a loner and an introvert. He and my now-ex watched sports, etc. together. Sometimes he and I would stay up to 2 a.m. playing board games. My MIL thought it was "unseemly," but he was fun and harmless.

Anyway, every weekend the water would go off.  We had an electric pump because we lived high on a hill. If there wasn't water, the pump would burn up. So you had to "listen" and see if it went off. If it didn't, you had to go to the basement and unplug it.

So imagine how hard it was to tell your houseguest just don't flush in the middle of the night! He was upstairs with his own bathroom, and there was no way he could hear whether the pump had gone off from up there.  We, of course, were asleep.

He was cool with it. He stopped staying with us when our first child was born. I wonder where he is now? I can't even remember his last name.

[Ryan]

Never had water not available! Always have been on city water....maybe just once for a few hours when they flushed fire hydrants

[Opti]

Jul 23, 2014 19:50:02 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Never had water not available! Always have been on city water....maybe just once for a few hours when they flushed fire hydrants

Ryan, I think I was without water for 5 days back when Floyd trashed NJ. The nearby water plant

got flooded and they shut off water for days.

The rainwater system sounds interesting. Do you use it for all your water needs or just some?

The electric pump thing though does not sound like fun!

[swamp]

Im on a well. Unless the power goes out we always have water. And if it's an extensive outage we hook up the generator. 

[swamp]

I also live in the boonies. If there no water, I can pee outside. 

[msventoux]

I grew up in the boonies.  You had to haul water into the house from miles away.  Sometimes even uphill in snow both ways!   A few hours without water won't be that bad. 

[qofcc]

When the pipe lines to the artesian well a mile down the road failed we were without water for 2 weeks until I could have a tank installed for water delivery & we did that for a few years until public water came down the road. My neighbors around the corner had public water & we hauled 2l bottles to wash dishes & flush the toilets etc. And showered at their house. The tank ran dry several times before I figured out the limit of how many baths & loads of water you can do on 500 gallons/wk.

A few hours? No big deal. Go see a movie.

[Artemis Windsong]

Years ago in another house in another town, I turned on the outside water faucet to water some plants.  The water pipe ruptured and was spraying through the subflooring into the finished basement.  It was running down the walls and door jams. 

No water shut off on the water heater.  The city had to shut the water off for the entire block.  I had some hateful calls about that as well as slamming the phone down when I explained.

The house I am in now was vacant for several months.  When the water was turned on, the water pipes leaked.  Unfinished basement, thank heaven.  Also DH knew how to fix it easily.

Our mountain house is a haul your water and use a bucket of water to flush the toilet with. 

[haapai]

I spent a good chunk of my childhood in backward places the third world less developed nations least developing countries.  We usually lost water at least once a week and when someone told us that it would be back on again by ten, we knew that they were making things up. 

Two fifty gallon plastic trash containers filled with water kept us from strangling the person who promised us water later that day.  We had a fairly elaborate etiquette for stretching out that water for a week or so that you probably don't want to know about.  I'll skip over some of the grosser rationing details and right to what happened when we were down to only one barrel of somewhat clean water.  At that point, flushing required a trip down to the river. This was a river from which bathers routinely disappeared due to either the crocodiles or, more likely, bull sharks.  Getting two full buckets of water out of this river and up the very slippery clay banks wasn't much fun, or very safe.  Defecating just below the high tide mark instead of wading into the water was much safer in the short term and quite popular. 

Feel better now?

[resolution]

Jul 23, 2014 19:57:19 GMT -5 Opti said:

Jul 23, 2014 19:50:02 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Never had water not available! Always have been on city water....maybe just once for a few hours when they flushed fire hydrants

Ryan, I think I was without water for 5 days back when Floyd trashed NJ. The nearby water plant

got flooded and they shut off water for days.

The rainwater system sounds interesting. Do you use it for all your water needs or just some?

The electric pump thing though does not sound like fun!

It is for all of our water. Our roof gutters drain into a 10,000 gallon cistern. Although I use bottled water for drinking and cooking because I don't really trust the UV purification system.

The town nearby has been talking about expanding, and if they do we will end up on public water, so we have been using the existing rainwater system instead of putting in a well. We don't want to pay for a well and then have to cough up the money to join the public water system.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

The first winter we lived in the PNW (after having moved from San Jose), our pipes froze. We had well water. That was not a fun week for three very spoiled little girls. A neighbor let us fill buckets to flush the toilets. 

When I was going through my divorce, I was paying the bills on my house and XH was supposed to be paying the bills on his house. (Both our names were on both houses.) He stopped paying his water bill, and the city threatened to shut off my water. I cried and pleaded and fortunately the billing supervisor took mercy in me and unchecked whatever it was to get me and my house off of the shut off list. 

[Deleted]

Actually, we had the electric pump thing WITH city water. It was just pumping water from the road up the hill, not from a well.

[Opti]

Jul 24, 2014 7:25:17 GMT -5 @southernsusana said:

Actually, we had the electric pump thing WITH city water. It was just pumping water from the road up the hill, not from a well.

Interesting. There are quite a few properties up a steep hill in my area.

I wonder if they have to do that.

[Opti]

Jul 23, 2014 21:08:33 GMT -5 Artemis Windsong said:

Years ago in another house in another town, I turned on the outside water faucet to water some plants.  The water pipe ruptured and was spraying through the subflooring into the finished basement.  It was running down the walls and door jams. 

No water shut off on the water heater.  The city had to shut the water off for the entire block.  I had some hateful calls about that as well as slamming the phone down when I explained.

The house I am in now was vacant for several months.  When the water was turned on, the water pipes leaked.  Unfinished basement, thank heaven.  Also DH knew how to fix it easily.

Our mountain house is a haul your water and use a bucket of water to flush the toilet with. 

Sounds awful. I called the super for the complex right away to make sure it wasn't the water company

even though nothing seemed to be going on per the water companies home page.

[NancysSummerSip]

Jul 23, 2014 21:39:09 GMT -5 haapai said:

I spent a good chunk of my childhood in backward places the third world less developed nations least developing countries.  We usually lost water at least once a week and when someone told us that it would be back on again by ten, we knew that they were making things up. 

Two fifty gallon plastic trash containers filled with water kept us from strangling the person who promised us water later that day.  We had a fairly elaborate etiquette for stretching out that water for a week or so that you probably don't want to know about.  I'll skip over some of the grosser rationing details and right to what happened when we were down to only one barrel of somewhat clean water.  At that point, flushing required a trip down to the river. This was a river from which bathers routinely disappeared due to either the crocodiles or, more likely, bull sharks.  Getting two full buckets of water out of this river and up the very slippery clay banks wasn't much fun, or very safe.  Defecating just below the high tide mark instead of wading into the water was much safer in the short term and quite popular. 

Feel better now?

Oh heck yes. About pretty much everything.

FWIW, multiple hurricane hits, but never been without water or landline phone (cell phone has gone out, along with electricity, the longest time for a week after Hurricane Jeanne.) We had water get in the house after Hurricane Frances, and lost two rooms' worth of carpet, but I hated that carpet anyway, so ripping it out was the best thing, in my book.

[alabamagal]

My water wasn't turned off, but last year our city water had an orange haze, and obviously south georgia orange clay.  We called the city.  Apparently they had moved a fire hydrant and not flushed the line properly.

[Sam_2.0]

I really thought this was going to be another story about shutting people off for non-payment. Guess it's pretty obvious what I do for a living

[greeniis10]

I thought it was going to be about water restrictions due to drought.  Guess what type of climate I live in?

[Deleted]

Well, I came home from work on a Friday night, my 40th birthday, middle of January and 20 below zero.  No water.  Called the well guy and he had to pull the well and replace the pump.  Our well is 657 feet deep.  He was there until 4am on Saturday. 

It cost me $5600 to get my water back on. 

[jkapp]

Jul 24, 2014 15:00:38 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Well, I came home from work on a Friday night, my 40th birthday, middle of January and 20 below zero.  No water.  Called the well guy and he had to pull the well and replace the pump.  Our well is 657 feet deep.  He was there until 4am on Saturday. 

It cost me $5600 to get my water back on. 

Yeesh!  See, i would love to live in the country on a couple acres all my own, but its the well water thing that keeps me in the city and on city water.  I have heard too many (expensive) horror stories about wells.  One lady i worked with had to have her well deepened, which was about the same cost as putting an addition on a house!

[Deleted]

Jul 24, 2014 15:27:59 GMT -5 jkapp said:

Jul 24, 2014 15:00:38 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Well, I came home from work on a Friday night, my 40th birthday, middle of January and 20 below zero.  No water.  Called the well guy and he had to pull the well and replace the pump.  Our well is 657 feet deep.  He was there until 4am on Saturday. 

It cost me $5600 to get my water back on. 

Yeesh!  See, i would love to live in the country on a couple acres all my own, but its the well water thing that keeps me in the city and on city water.  I have heard too many (expensive) horror stories about wells.  One lady i worked with had to have her well deepened, which was about the same cost as putting an addition on a house!

My well was 15K in 1999.  I have no clue what it would cost to put in today.  My septic is more of an issue if you want to talk country pains.  I don't mind the well, but I'd love to be on city sewer. 

[jkapp]

Jul 24, 2014 15:33:49 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Jul 24, 2014 15:27:59 GMT -5 jkapp said:

Yeesh!  See, i would love to live in the country on a couple acres all my own, but its the well water thing that keeps me in the city and on city water.  I have heard too many (expensive) horror stories about wells.  One lady i worked with had to have her well deepened, which was about the same cost as putting an addition on a house!

My well was 15K in 1999.  I have no clue what it would cost to put in today.  My septic is more of an issue if you want to talk country pains.  I don't mind the well, but I'd love to be on city sewer. 

Yes, that too.   I've also heard about the septic horror stories - those were less about expense, though, and more about a...mess

[Deleted]

Jul 24, 2014 15:37:04 GMT -5 jkapp said:

Jul 24, 2014 15:33:49 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

My well was 15K in 1999.  I have no clue what it would cost to put in today.  My septic is more of an issue if you want to talk country pains.  I don't mind the well, but I'd love to be on city sewer. 

Yes, that too.   I've also heard about the septic horror stories - those were less about expense, though, and more about a...mess

Yes.  Never get one that requires a pump!

[motherto2]

Years ago (25 or so) we were on public water and we kept running out of water. We had a very small water system. We had leaks and what not and would lose water for a couple of days at a time. They would bring in a water truck and fill the tank. Everyone would rush to wash clothes and dishes and then it would run dry. Not to mention the leaks in the system would be like leaving spigots on. At the same time, our toilets had pink water, and then when you peed in it it would go clear. We boiled our water for our daughter (she was an infant). Years later, I talked to a water guy and told him what we went through, and he said the pink is a dye they would put in the system when it was being cleaned and washed out. If the pink showed through, it meant the backwash was not working properly. Boiling the water was bad for our daughter - it just concentrated it. At the time all this was happening, our daughter was very sick. Constant throwing up and diarrhea.  Caught everything that came along.  I tried to contact the water folks at the state, they just blew me off.  That was before the internet days where information would be more prevalent, and you could figure more out.  Thankfully she doesn't seem to have any lasting effects from this experience.