Preparedness for when

fuddle

The Cheerleader I'm now at the point where I feel I don't agree with and get annoyed by much of what I read so instead of retaliating in a way that may upset, I'd rather just not read, avoiding negativity altogether.

Icky here too Mojoworking. I've been up since 2am. Would you mind expanding on what you were reading about re: taps/electricity?

Mojoworking

Sorry fuddle in last light basically when the electric stopped working so did the water stop coming out of the taps pretty quickly. It doesn't state when or immediately but they nearly co-incide. I thought the water systems would keep going but thinking about it I suppose treatment plants would need electric. In the book people in cities are thirsty. I just had it in my head that your electric might be out a few days but I didn't think your water would be affected so quickly. I know it's a story and not proven but if someone could give us a bit of explanation I'd be grateful. Also I found it frightening that a tiny amount of people had second guessed what was coming peppers i.e. people like us and they/we had already emptied a great chunk of tins from the supermarket first thing. So God knows how Mr and Mrs atypical would survive if they didn't get to the shops until after it all became clear.

Sorry to create issues about the ignore list. I could just scroll through but I'd like to try it this way as I personally can't help but read and scroll and on some occasions I truly believe ignorance is bliss.

mardatha

Our elect goes off quite often, but the water stays on for a week Mojo. Unless you live upstairs in a flat... it might go off there. (I mean high up, as in tall buildings)

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Glad you enjoyed Last Light, Mojoworking. I think I was one of the several people here who read and recommended it.

The issue in the novel about the water going off so quickly was that it was being deliberately-done to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible - the events which precipitated the crisis being a malicious conspiracy not random ill-fortune/ solar flares etc. There was one mention of the conspirators turning the water off to most of the country more quickly than it would have otherwise have happened.

I work in a council call centre. If any utility goes down (gas, electric, water) quite a few of the public will call their council, whereas a moment's thought would reveal that councils don't supply these services. Therefore, we know within minutes of any outage in the city, and usually end up talking to the company responsible, so we can then tell Mrs A Customer something like It's a problem with the substation at X, affecting these postcodes and they should have the supply back up in Y.

When the water goes down in this city, substantial chunks of the neighbourhoods go off-supply at once. If your job is to talk to the water company near the start of the incident, their call centre typically tells ours what they think is going wrong. Often enough, they're not right in the first incident, it's not a water tower, it's a pump elsewhere. The update will appear on their website.

As the calls come in to us, we can see various postcodes going off-supply and others adjacent going, firstly, to low-pressure and then off completely. It might take down a quarter to a fifth of the city, and the hinterlands in that section of the compass, with no warning. Often it's as simple as one electrical pump breaking down.

The word which frightens me about this is that it's all going electrically. No power will quickly equal no water, and that's fact not fiction. There may be areas of the country where the water is moving through the mains by gravity, rather than electrically-pumped, but I'm not in one of them.

As to filling the bathtub, there are several problems with that. Firstly, try leaving your tub for several hours after bathing and you will see that it will slooooowly empty itself. Not ideal if you're counting on that water to keep you alive. Also, it will be a body of water in an imperfectly-clean receptacle, with a large surface area. And probably adjacent to a facility where you do your business and at risk of contamination with airborne faecal matter. Last thing you're going to need in a crisis is a gippy tummy and loose bowels.

Saucepans are better than nothing, but an entire household's worth of pots and pans isn't going to hold many litres of water.

It's far better to source yourself some of those camping water carriers and have them already filled and ready to be used. I have 2 x 25 litre ones and 1 x 10 litre ones, plus many many 2 litre bottles of water. Water is stashed in several places, all away from direct light (don't want sunlight on stored water or could get green algae growing in it). I switch out the water in the containers every 3 months (put it in bath and use it that way).

It's a pretty minor faff and ensures that I'm covered for short and middling term crises.

You might also want to think about situtions where you would have to haul water in from a water bowser/ stand tap. Have you got suitable containers and have you got something like a very strong trolley to move them with? One litre = one kilogramme, remember. I have a newspaper delivery trolley which I keep the spud sack on in my bike shed, but it would be the work of seconds to take that off and put a water carrier on

Oh, and don't forget a bungee cord or two, to secure a carrier to a trolley. Very handy things are bungee cords.

jk0

That reminds me:

I am presently renovating the bathroom of one of my rental flats. The cold water comes directly from the main rather than the tank that feeds the hot cylinder.

I am mindful that if the water goes off, there will be no cold water for anything, even flushing the loo. Should I connect the cold taps up to the tank while I have the opportunity?

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

That reminds me:

I am presently renovating the bathroom of one of my rental flats. The cold water comes directly from the main rather than the tank that feeds the hot cylinder.

I am mindful that if the water goes off, there will be no cold water for anything, even flushing the loo. Should I connect the cold taps up to the tank while I have the opportunity?

I'm not a plumber but I was under the impression that the cold water feed had to come off the main, in order for the cold water to be potable?

jk0

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'm not a plumber but I was under the impression that the cold water feed had to come off the main, in order for the cold water to be potable?

Oh, yes you are right. It is required to be mains fed at the kitchen sink. I believe there is no problem with brushing your teeth with tank water though.

Mojoworking

Thanks GQ for such a clear reply. I didn't know the bath would slowly empty and although I do know about hygiene I had conveniently forgotten and doing our business 2 foot from our only drinking supply is gross now you've put the image in my head!!

I have a couple of the camping water containers. OH is at the complete other end of the prepping spectrum to me and although he is pretty chilled he thinks I'm mad about storing water as it is always there!! I know.

I'm assuming I've got a water tank in the loft but that isn't the most accessible. Don't want to be falling through the ceiling.

Thanks again GQ. I'm going to have to rethink a few things x

Perplexed_Pineapple

Morning all. I think this is interesting and relevant to our discussions:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/new-design-points-a-path-to-the-ultimate-battery
A 90% efficient battery based on lithium would solve many of the problems associated with current battery technologies and make intermittent sources of generation like solar and wind more practical. Now just the Haber-Bosch process to be replaced and we might survive the end of oil after all :cool:

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'm not a plumber but I was under the impression that the cold water feed had to come off the main, in order for the cold water to be potable?

jk0 wrote: »

Oh, yes you are right. It is required to be mains fed at the kitchen sink. I believe there is no problem with brushing your teeth with tank water though.

The setup here is direct feed to the kitchen tap, and a storage tank feeds everything else. Though when I had a combi-boiler fitted the plumber was desperate to remove the storage tank and have everything on mains pressure. (I went through four firms till I could find one that did as I wanted).

Mojoworking wrote: »

I have a couple of the camping water containers. OH is at the complete other end of the prepping spectrum to me and although he is pretty chilled he thinks I'm mad about storing water as it is always there!! I know.

I'm assuming I've got a water tank in the loft but that isn't the most accessible. Don't want to be falling through the ceiling.

Thanks again GQ. I'm going to have to rethink a few things x

If you have a water tank - as I said the fashion is to remove these when fitting combi boilers, you wouldn't need to access the loft, just turn on the tap. The downside is that this system also feeds your toilet cisterns which use a huge amount of water, remembering not to flush every time could be an issue as most of us will do so on automatic pilot.

In terms of persuading hubby that storing water is a good idea - look at Lancashire's water problem last summer, or frozen pipes cutting the water supplies in bad winters. Several restaurants were closed near me for two-three days last week as a water mains had burst, I presume nearby housing was also affected, how would hubby cope without a cuppa?