Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Water water everywere
Our house is cursed. No really, it is. It has a water curse. We can’t go more than about three or four months without something happening that involves water. We’ve had leaks in the roof (many many leaks in the roof), burst pipes, faulty tiling in showers that caused leaks, leaky chimneys, blocked drains of every sort from clogs of fat to tree roots, failed drainage sumps, overrunning gutters, pipes punctured by builders. You name it, its happened in our house in the last ten years and for most of that list, more than once.
Want to know our biggest issue? We don’t have a mains cut off valve. Seriously. We’ve had the water board out on four occasions. The latest in technology has been used to try to trace our mains water pipe to find the cut off valve, and its failed. We actually had one water board technician scratch his head and ask if we had a private water supply because he didn’t think we were connected (I asked for a refund of our water payments, but the lady on the other end of the phone laughed).
Want to know our second biggest issue? The water board kindly renewed the mains water on our drive. Water pressure went from a weak piddle to a torrent. For those in the know we had over 10 Bar of pressure. The average house is lucky to have 2 or 3 Bar. Most have less than 1. Three of our neighbours have had burst pipes and floods. Wimps. We’ve had every leak and flood imaginable. A couple months ago, after our last flood, and after much sucking of teeth and no more than three plumbers who turned down the job, we acted.
We actually had to get the water board to turn off the water supply to the whole drive. Cutting out the back of a set of cabnets in the kitchen we had a faulty turn off valve replaced and an outrageously expensive water pressure reducer valve installed. We thought we’d reached nirvana. Now we could actually turn off the mains water AND reduced the pressure. Three leaky taps stopped leaking, groaning pipes stopped groaning. Heaven.
Except on Monday LL, being LL she gets worried and checks these things, opened the back of the cupboard where all the work had been done and found it completely flooded. One of the joints, on the reduced pressure side of the system I might add, was spurting water.
I think we might have to move.
Want to know our biggest issue? We don’t have a mains cut off valve. Seriously. We’ve had the water board out on four occasions. The latest in technology has been used to try to trace our mains water pipe to find the cut off valve, and its failed. We actually had one water board technician scratch his head and ask if we had a private water supply because he didn’t think we were connected (I asked for a refund of our water payments, but the lady on the other end of the phone laughed).
Want to know our second biggest issue? The water board kindly renewed the mains water on our drive. Water pressure went from a weak piddle to a torrent. For those in the know we had over 10 Bar of pressure. The average house is lucky to have 2 or 3 Bar. Most have less than 1. Three of our neighbours have had burst pipes and floods. Wimps. We’ve had every leak and flood imaginable. A couple months ago, after our last flood, and after much sucking of teeth and no more than three plumbers who turned down the job, we acted.
We actually had to get the water board to turn off the water supply to the whole drive. Cutting out the back of a set of cabnets in the kitchen we had a faulty turn off valve replaced and an outrageously expensive water pressure reducer valve installed. We thought we’d reached nirvana. Now we could actually turn off the mains water AND reduced the pressure. Three leaky taps stopped leaking, groaning pipes stopped groaning. Heaven.
Except on Monday LL, being LL she gets worried and checks these things, opened the back of the cupboard where all the work had been done and found it completely flooded. One of the joints, on the reduced pressure side of the system I might add, was spurting water.
I think we might have to move.
