Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Mojoworking wrote: »

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

I was very surprised that my bath tub emptied itself - I had left it to cool after bathing with the intention of using the water next day on the allotment and was astonished to go into the bathroom the following morning and find the plug still in and the tub empty!

Thank goodness I found that out at a time when it was a matter of curiousity rather than life and death.

The water tank in your loft will probably be a header tank and it won't be very big, so I wouldn't count of that as much of a resource in a crisis. If you think about it logically, the strength of the ceiling joists in a typical house wouldn't support much weight concentrated in one spot, anyway.

Two of my three water carriers were bought used from bootsales and very carefully cleaned and sterilised. The price of a new 25 litre one is shy of a tenner, I believe, so not much investment in peace of mind.

In areas of disrupted supply, where there are photos of people queuing at bowsers/ stand taps, you see all sorts of random receptacles for transporting water, some of which will probably slop water over the top in transit, like buckets. Some people don't even have a bucket at home and are really going to struggle if they have to collect water.

I'd like to suggest that you have some funnels (if you haven't already got them) as they make refilling the carriers much easier, as do jugs. All these things are easily and cheaply available now, but will be like gold dust in a crisis. HTH.

Witless

I have a separate toilet/bathroom and had them plumbed to use a combination of both.

The shower is mains fed as are the cold taps in both hand basins and the toilet cistern. The the bath cold water is fed from the cold water storage in the loft. I have the pipes labelled with the supply source.

My logic was that mains water was preferable for teeth cleaning (& an upstairs source of drinking water) and the combination meant that there would be a source of water irrespective of internal plumbing or external supply problems.

Interestingly, the only 2 supply problems I've had in the 20 odd years I've been here (touches wood) was as a result of both - an internal problem: a leaking valve which meant I had to close of the mains supply to the loft storage tank and drain the system. Of course, it happened at a weekend, and plumbers/spares were in short supply*.

The other was a mains interruption during the 2010 freeze up.

With the internal problem we had cold water upstairs and a flushable toilet and shower facilities.

With the mains problem we had hot water for (restricted, to conserve supplies) washing and cold water from storage for flushing (a slight faff, cistern refilled each time from buckets filled from the bath tap).

Hygiene/cooking was from the prepper supply.

* A lesson learned: I added a variety of emergency plumbing bits to the 'what if' stock - spare pressure relief valves (integral part of both domestic h/w and CH systems), compression joints, solder joints, short lengths of pipe in various gauges etc. I (& friend) have the know how to carry out emergency repairs if a plumber wasn't available (weekend, holiday etc) - though I'd certainly get the repair checked as soon as possible.

I have 2 c/h pumps (oil & solid fuel linked system) and, when I upgraded the oil boiler a few years back I kept the old pump and had it serviced by my friend (a fitter/mechanic). Sods Law states quite firmly that while it sits on a shelf in the shed it won't be needed.

The next time I'm having any plumbing done (some planned for next year) I'll intend getting the plumber to fit some more blade valves (I already have some) so that sections of the system can be isolated independently. I'll also get some of the 'freeze' aerosols from him.

A tad extreme, but then preppers are. And, despite govt figures - there is inflation so it's not only prepping, it's money saving. (Copper/brass is a scary price at present, and 'current' as opposed to 'old' quality & durability is questionable.)

(Sorry - a slightly more extensive answer that I originally intended).

(And more relevant to owner occupier than landlord).

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

The water tank in your loft will probably be a header tank and it won't be very big, so I wouldn't count of that as much of a resource in a crisis. If you think about it logically, the strength of the ceiling joists in a typical house wouldn't support much weight concentrated in one spot, anyway.

They vary, 220 litre is a fairly common size, (as is 50 litre) we have a 480 litre, so a half ton of water sitting up there - which is fine until you have a leak. Joists may be strong enough to support that sort of weight, but not if they rot through water seepage - happened to a friend of mine, the water tank ended up on the second floor of a three storey house, the water caused a huge amount of damage to the ground floor and basement.

jk0

Oh, very relevant for a landlord Witless, thanks for your long reply. (Some of my tenants are less resourceful in emergencies than a homeowner would be, so I have to do some thinking for them.)

Last week a tenant moved out, and my friend found a work colleague desperate to move in six days later. I thought this would be fine, as there were not many repairs needed. All I needed to do was re-attach a bath tap, which was loose. Due to weather, and moving tools from my other project, I only got this done on the Sunday night, when they were moving in at 1pm Monday.

When I had the water back on, I thought I'd better check that everything worked. For some reason my old tenant had switched off the electric shower outside the bathroom, so I switched it on, and checked it worked. It did, but the 'Off' button did not. (That's why they were turning it off outside.)

I always buy two of any electric shower, and keep the spare one under the bath to provide me with a full kit of spare parts. I thought it would be a simple matter to switch over the front panels. It wasn't! For some unknown reason, the printed circuit boards in two identical showers were different. I would have to completely swap the whole shower unit. I did not have any olives with me, so had to come back on the Monday morning with my spares. I got the job finished with minutes to spare.

I would have been really up the creek without an identical shower unit though.

GreyQueen

nuatha wrote: »

They vary, 220 litre is a fairly common size, (as is 50 litre) we have a 480 litre, so a half ton of water sitting up there - which is fine until you have a leak. Joists may be strong enough to support that sort of weight, but not if they rot through water seepage - happened to a friend of mine, the water tank ended up on the second floor of a three storey house, the water caused a huge amount of damage to the ground floor and basement.

:eek: OMG! That must have been a horrendous mess. A little water can go a long way and be amazingly destructive.

I'm very impressed with Witless's domestic set up. I rent, and I have a hot water tank in the flat. Not sure of the litre capacity but it's 475 mm in diameter but that includes a lot of built-in insulation around the stainless steel tank. Tank is about 4 ft tall. The water is heated by the industrial gas boilers in the boiler house serving the block. The fill pipes for the WC cistern and both the cold taps and the electric shower are coming off the rising main. Water is very pressurised here, as it has to be to reach the upper floors. Haven't got any kind of tank other than the hot water one.

Makes me aware that we're all going to have slightly different set-ups and slightly different degrees of resilience to supply-side problems. It's good to familiarise oneself with what you have, what can be done with it, and if you can make any modifications to it.

In a recent partial loss of power inside my parental home, they were three days without lights downstairs, but this wasn't too bad as some of the groundfloor, including the downstairs shower-room, had its lighting supply connecting to the upper cicuits, when the extension was built, which meant that only the kitchen, the sitting-room and downstairs hall were without light. It was a something they knew about, but had forgotten, and was very convenient as it happened.

Mojoworking

Hi nuatha as we live in a city and are 2 mins from everything it is really hard for OH to see the benefits of being prepared and he also believes "they" will sort. When I ask who they is I get a withering look. We went to visit my sister who is literally in the middle of no where no paths Street lights other houses and 5 miles from a corner shop.and 20 from a supermarket. I've always.said how lovely it is to live in the middle of nowhere but spending 1 night there.put him off. He is a city dweller. Everything is on hand 24 hours. The Lancashire water in the summer was in the country in his eyes. I only have about 10 bottles of water.so always enough for a cuppa. I'd dread not being able to shower or do the washing when I felt like it. Can't even think about.not having enough water.to drink.

Witless

... to add (as others posted whilst I was typing)

Not sure of the actual capacity of the loft storage tanks (there are two, cold water & c/h header tank) but the main one is big and positioned in such a way that it's on a 1" wood base over a supporting wall (the wall between the bathroom and toilet) and 2 joists (IYSWIM)

A rough calculation suggests that it could hold between 165 - 200ish gallons: it's (approx) 3' x 3' x 4' external dimensions though obviously that includes the insulation & it's not filled to the top - I think 100 gallons rings a bell. (That calculation seems wrong somehow though)

It's a galvanised tank, I believe modern plastic ones are smaller. I know that in neighbours' houses when they changed to plastic tanks in a couple of cases the plumber left the galvanised tanks in the loft as the only way of getting them out was to cut them up in situ.

I've had a look on the Screwfix site out of interest: modern variants seem to range from 25 - 50 gallon I think (IIRC) the tank I put in my previous house was a 40 gallon one.

greenbee

Witless - your point about isolation valves is important. As Nuatha says, leaking water can cause a lot of damage.

When I moved into this house the plumbing was in a very poor state - no isolation valves, and water so hard that the hot water tank when it came out was half full of scale! (Mind you, the previous owners had obviously been increasing the water temperature to make up for the reducing size of the tank and as a result forced more limescale out of the water...)

Over time I'm replacing ALL the plumbing and heating pipework as the quality of the original is poor - when a floorboard was lifted during the refitting of the bathroom an 18mm parted company with a 22mm pipe resulting in an unscheduled shower in the kitchen :cool:

We have added a LOT of isolation valves, and I know where they all are - the bath panel has a door in it, apparently for storage, but actually so I can get to the valves for the bath and shower. Every toilet has a separate valve, and every tap.

I reluctantly got rid of the cold water tank in the attic to move to mains pressure hot water, and this has had the unexpected bonus of making it VERY easy to shut off all the water at once - if I turn off the main stopcock, the hot water goes off as well as the cold. This has been useful on a couple of occasions where there have been problems were isolation valves aren't yet in place.

Replacing all the pipework isn't going to be cheap, but there are apparently so many loops and bends that a. there should be less chance of air in the heating system, b. I can zone the heating which will be more efficient and c. the old copper may well pay for the news. Some of the plumbing has gunmetal joints as well, and given how hard the water is, this needs to be replaced as I'm seriously considering installing a water softener at some point (unless I can find a cost effective whole-house filter system).

The heating is also going to be set up so it is easy to drain rather than having to wait for upstairs to drain through the ceilings if it leaks - the spanner for opening the drain point is in the garage, and a length of hose long enough to get to the manhole cover (yes, I know this shouldn't go into the septic tank, but it's better than letting it go into the soakaways that drain directly into the river) will be permanently attached to this drain point.

I'd certainly recommend that anyone having any plumbing work done gets additional isolation valves put in so that the source of any leak can be shut off rather than needing to do so at the mains and cut off your water supply. It's also worth knowing where your internal and external stop taps are and checking that they are working on a regular basis.

Witless

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'm very impressed with Witless's domestic set up. ...
Ms shower-room, had its lighting supply connecting to the upper cicuits, when the extension was built, which meant that only the kitchen, the sitting-room and downstairs hall were without light. It was a something they knew about, but had forgotten, and was very convenient as it happened.

You'd like the electrics too GQ

When I renovated I did a fair bit of the work myself with the 'tech' stuff done out of hours by qualified tradesmen on 'mate's rates'.

I'm essentially lazy,or paranoid, or a prepper ... or sensible.

While not sure of the technicalities there are multiple circuits both upstairs and downstairs for both sockets & lights meaning that at least half the sockets in any room will work (minimum of 1 double in each corner - more in the study/computer room) as will half the lights.

When we had a problem with the lighting upstairs (I don't do electric faults!) I got round it by using 18" fluorescent inspection lamps plugged into sockets and hung from the hooks the pictures had been temporarily removed from until an electrician sorted out the short (water ingress in an outside light).

Not ideal - but a source of illumination.

I used a similar solution in the bathroom (taped to the tiled wall) when the pull cord switch failed. (No shame on it - I hadn't replaced them during the renovation - if it aint broke don't fix it). When the one in the toilet failed I had one in 'stock': bought 3 when buying the bathroom replacement - there's a pull cord in the roof-space too)

thriftwizard

GQ, just a quick query - could changing your bath plug help? Asking because I quite often leave entire sheep's fleeces in our bath in cooling soapy water overnight & it's all still there in the morning - albeit a rather different colour! That, and proximity to the upstairs loo, are two reasons why I'd never use the bath to store water that might get drunk; we have a number of camping water containers for drinking water, as well as rainwater butts for washing water. Rainwater being by far the best water to use for dyeing, too...