Now I know why I'll always have loft water storage and a hot water tank

[Capitol]

Around 5.15am this morning ( courtesy of CCTV, I wasn't about) My local watermain burst just where it crosses the drive. The failure was good enough to reduce my water pressure to about 4 ft. I spotted this at about 8.30 when I made the tea and coffee( the kitchen tap had nearly zero flow) I don't normally notice much at this hour. So, I retired back to bed to finish listening to the Today program, having made a mental note that I might need to do something about it later on and deduced that it was a water board liability and not mine.

It turned out that some of my neighbours were a bit more enthusiastic and had complained about the lack of water to the supplier, who sent round a man with van at 9.30am. I was up and about by then and agreed with him that it would be a good idea to start digging holes in the pavement to find the problem. Fair play to the supplier, by 11 am they had found and delivered a couple of men, a van and a compressor with Kango hammer. Those of us with wartime experiences have an instinctive water hoarding tendency, so a few kettles were slowly filled and we settled down for the days experience.

The subsoil is heavy clay, so fast digging is not possible, however by

1.30pm, the hole was dug, the leak fixed and water back on, for 10 minutes. This was the point at which leak 2 was deduced, so digging recommenced. Those of us with 150 gallon loft tanks and a hot water tank, together with full kettles were not really inconvenienced and were able to supply drinks etc to the workforce which were appreciated.

The job proceeded to leak 3, then leak 4. At which point the decision was taken to dig an even bigger hole and replace a long section of pipe with new. At 9.30 pm, all was claimed to be in order and the workforce retired for the day. The steel pipes have been in for >50 yrs.

We were not inconvenienced at all, however some of my nieghbours do not have stored cold and hot water and were greatly inconvenienced. As we lose our water supply at least once a year because of leak mending, there is no way that I would give up storing water.

[Cash]

+1

And that's why I refuse to let the gas board fitters 'bully' me into having my working Baxi system boiler (on their reduced spares list) changed for a combi. When the 20 year old Baxi gives up the ghost, the money reserved for a new boiler, will see a new condensing system boiler fitted, thus keeping my reserve of water.

Cash

[Harry Bloomfield]

Capitol presented the following explanation :

Using stored water from a tank for making drinks, is really not a good idea.

[Tim Watts]

But you have the option to boil or to use some steritabs.

[GB]

We have a direct mains system, and it is very convenient. I keep 4 x 5L bottles of mineral water in reserve. Enough for drinks and an emergency flush of the loo.

[Dave Liquorice]

Hasn't done us any harm for the last 15 odd years and that includes the period before I got around to cleaning them out (any number of dead wood lice, a hand full of large centipedes, a mouse and layer of general rubble/dust) and fitting proper lids.

30 years ago the water was pumped up from a farm lower down, so supply wasn't that reliable hence the tanks. We are on mains water now, not sure when that arrived.

[charles]

Should be OK if you boil it

[charles]

now I think about it, our "mains" water comes from a tank on a nearby hill

[Roger Mills]

He didn't appear to be advocating that. AIUI, he filled lots of kettles and saucepans - albeit slowly - from the mains before it was turned off for repair. And of course, anyone else could have done that - regardless of whether they had any storage tanks in the house.

Where stored hot (and cold) water *is* useful is when you want a bath or shower during a supply interruption. And, of course, anytime when you want to fill a bath in a time best measured by a stopwatch as opposed to a calendar.

[Danny Colyer]

I was very glad of my tanks when this happened:

By the time I got home from work and discovered that the water was off, it had been off for long enough for all of the local shops to have sold out of bottled water. It was another 12 hours before Bristol Water provided alternative supplies, and then they didn't provide enough.

[GB]

We do not have a problem with that. As part of the refurbishment when we moved in, we had a new plastic supply pipe fitted with a three-quarter inch connection to the main. However, it was quite a long time before that was connected, and we actually had no problem when it was just the old half inch connection.

[RJH]

But really, in a city, is such an eventuality enough to justify water storage?

Youth of today . . . ;-)

[charles]

Many city water mains are Victorian. They burst.

[Bob Henson]

Speshly in Bristle - Oi bet that Isdamned'ard Kingswood Brumbell laid most of 'em 'imself. 'E probbly ad poipes left over from they boats.

[RJH]

They do, of course. And the likely time without tap water?

[polygonum]

My choice, when refitting bathroom and downstairs WC, was to ensure that one WC was tank-fed, the other mains. Whichever source has a problem, the alternative should last a while.

(I only didn't do that for the taps because we a) got mixers; b) have only low pressure HW; c) didn't want the pressures to be too unbalanced.)

[charles]

Depends on the size of the main. Sometimes two or three days

[Danny Colyer]

Yeah, I had (and seriously considered) the option of driving to the office and filling a load of bottles, but I was glad I didn't have to.

[Danny Colyer]

In this case it was about 40 hours.

[Dave Liquorice]

Boats don't 'ave many poipes. Poipes leftover from 'is numatic railway down Exter way.