Leaking

August 6, 2017
Water. Such a simple need, but when it’s hard to get, its importance explodes. After we called to complain about a $140 water bill (normal is about $20), when The man from the city opened the street meter, we could see the dial spinning rapidly. Water was rushing through, but to where? We don’t know. Some pipe under the house was leaking 20,000 gallons of water per day. He turned it off. It was strange to have the electricity and gas working, air conditioning cooling us, the refrigerator still keeping food cold, but no water. Fortunately, we have a kind neighbor who agreed to allow us to use her culinary water from a hose to her outlet. We carried it in large containers into the house. I have water stored in the garage in used detergent and juice containers to use in emergency.
We carried the water where we needed it. In the California drought, the saying was, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” But we couldn’t flush at all unless we brought water to the tank. We put our camping water dispenser at the kitchen sink. I have moist wipes there to help keep hands clean. We had containers to pour from at each bathroom sink.
Now I have a first-hand appreciation for those women who have to carry water. Sometimes they walk miles to get it. If it’s in a pot, they have a circular cap with raised sides to allow them to carry it on their head. I think they must have to start learning balance when very young.
We have been taking it for granted that when you turn the tap, water comes out. Today we have a greater appreciation for the modern plumbing system. We are clean and smell pretty nice because our retired plumber neighbor Max from across the street told us how to attach the neighbor’s hose right to our house with a brass coupler. It’s lower pressure, but it runs!
The emergency is over. Can you imagine how the first real flush felt? Fixing dinner and using tap water to help cook and clean up? Fresh drinking water is as precious as the finest beverage when you’ve been drinking from plastic containers.
Men came in and out to see why the problem occurred (they still don’t know. Plumber neighbor says copper pipe should last twenty-five years at least and our home is twenty-two years old). A company that has a device to detect the pipes used it while the water was running. The water detective put a big taped x on our floor where the sound was loudest, right in the downstairs bathroom near the toilet. Our hearts sank.
What we figure is that even this has its blessings. Yes the pipe leaks, but it didn’t flood our house or the neighbors’ houses. Apparently when the builder put up our home, he erected it on a field of pea gravel. All that water just flowed through the gravel instead of flooding us.
Instead of digging everything up, the plumber has the means to follow the present pipe and just lay down a duplicate new one and use that instead! No jackhammers or trench diggers. We won’t know what caused a hole in the original pipe, but we assume the new one will be good for at least another twenty-two years. That should do it.
Water. We could go without food for a very long time without dying, but only a few days without water. We were in no danger of death, but water became, for a few days, our focus: lugging it; saving it. I have been thinking about the Water of Life. Would that I could focus on him with the fervor I focused on plain city water. PMA.