How do you cope without water?

Ancalagon said:
I don't have a gym membership and even if I did, the gym would also have no water.

This latest outage is huge - Bryanston, Lonehill, Fourways, Douglasdale and Midrand have no water.
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Where in Midrand though - it is not a small area. I am in midrand - we have water.
 
surface said:
Where in Midrand though - it is not a small area. I am in midrand - we have water.
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I don't know, I am just looking at the Joburg Water Twitter feed.

Looks like an absolute disaster - huge area of Joburg without water. Good thing I'm going away this weekend because I fully expect the next couple of days to be disastrous as far as water goes.
 
I posted elsewhere about our water problem yesterday. Coping: It's k@k. Didn't expect a water interuption so didn't prepare for it. Luckily had a old drum full of old water outside. Boiled some and used it to wash all the dirty body parts. Rest to flush drolle. Power outage... I've got a gas bbq and plenty camping stuff. Problem is boredom.
 
I expect to not have water for the next 7 days. So maybe by next week Wednesday it will be okay.
 
Ancalagon said:
I expect to not have water for the next 7 days. So maybe by next week Wednesday it will be okay.
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Liewe fok. 7 Days ? That's a bugger. And that because of prv's ? Fckit, how long does it take to replace a valve ?
 
Well, they said that they want to replace 3 valves over 7 days. Each time they replace a valve, they turn the water off at 8PM and then it on again at 4AM.

Here is the problem - they apparently turned the water on this morning sometime like 6AM and I still have no water. In fact, the whole of Bryanston still has no water. So when they turn it on at 4AM, that doesn't mean everyone will get water at 6AM or even 8AM. And especially not me because I'm high up on a hill. I expect to be the last person to get water.

If I am lucky, I will get water around 6PM and it will go off at 8PM. That is what I honestly think will happen over the next few days.

It is a good thing that there is a long weekend coming where not only will I be away but you know that they earn lots of overtime so they will be motivated to work.

EDIT: I wish they would actually just replace all 3 of the valves at once and get it over with. They are just prolonging this and making it worse in my opinion.
 
I've been lucky so far. The water cuts at home have only been for a couple of hours at most, so we could quite easily nip out and make a plan.

I was however without water for 4 days at work when that substation caught alight/was sabotaged and affected the water supply. During that time I brought water from home.
 
In Paulshof it's been low pressure but everything still running so fingers crossed.
 
Have done 2 or 3 weeks down here and not just once either .... it was surreal and bloody expensive and also one thing I won't be missing once gone.
 
About 5 years ago we started experiencing water interruptions in Bloemfontein, so I went the Jojo /pressure pump route. Since then I have added a borehole - just a twist of a valve and I have (filtered) water again.

If going for the Jojo tank, one should keep in mind that the pressure pump adds to your electricity account. Also, the water can become stagnant if not used constantly (so either put the whole house onto water from the tank, or use the tank to irrigate the garden and install a switchover valve for the house)

When Eskom started going south I added solar panels and batteries. Pretty much off grid now, and the system is rapidly paying itself off.
 
signates said:
As above. The only way to ensure you have water during an outage is to have your own personal water reservoir (Jojo tank).

A 5 000l tank should be enough to last a few weeks and even more than a month if you ration it.

You could set it up so that you don't even know that the municipal water supply is off.

Municipal supply - > Jojo tank with float switch - > pump - > pressure tank - > house.

A setup like this could cost as little as R10k.
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I am looking at doing something like this, as I live in a little sliver of heaven in JHB where a main pipe constantly bursts and they have to do maintenance (usually at about 2-5 day periods without water). At the moment we just use the pool water for cleaning ourselves and the toilet systems and buy bottles water for coffee etc.

My only concern with the setup do you not have any issues with algae or bacteria in the stagnate water of the tanks. Do you not need to put in a filtration system as well?
 
ISP cash cow said:
I am looking at doing something like this, as I live in a little sliver of heaven in JHB where a main pipe constantly bursts and they have to do maintenance (usually at about 2-5 day periods without water). At the moment we just use the pool water for cleaning ourselves and the toilet systems and buy bottles water for coffee etc.

My only concern with the setup do you not have any issues with algae or bacteria in the stagnate water of the tanks. Do you not need to put in a filtration system as well?
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You are basically never running directly from the municipality and always running from the Jojo tank. The water therefore does not stagnate long enough for any bacteria to grow.

You could also put in a UV light in the tank to eliminate this completely. You get special submersible UV lights for water tanks. They cost about R3 500.00 and is much more effective than an in-line UV light.

Basically the water tank is filled from the municipal supply only. You then use this water in the house. As the level in the tank drops, the float switch will activate and fill the tank. The float switch will then close the municipal supply when the tank is full again.

The bigger the tank, the higher the risk of contamination due to stagnation. There are ways that you can circulate the water within the tank with another pump to avoid stagnation and keep the water moving in the tank. A 2 500l tank will last me a week. You can size your tank according to your own needs and how long you anticipate the outages to last.
 
Well what do you know? I have water.

I'm guessing it is temporary because they still have to fix those valves. So I have refilled all of my water bottles.
 
Ancalagon said:
So, my water has been out since Tuesday night. It is now Thursday. This is definitely not the only water interruption I have had this year although I think it is probably the worst.

I realized I do not cope well without water. Whenever I am without water or power for more than a few hours, my stress levels rise dramatically. I prefer having water but no power, to having power but no water. But either is bad.

I must say, it is one more thing that makes me happy that I have decided to emigrate next year. First world countries do have water interruptions, true, but not nearly as often or for as long. Their infrastructure is not crumbling like ours. They maintain it well.

What do you guys think? Do you cope well without water?
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Should have gotten your stillsuit fit... desert style.
 
In the US, I’ve never ever experienced a water or gas issue. I remember once aroun 2005 or so there was a brief 2-3 hour power failure due to a heat wave causing everyone to turn on their airconditioning. It then occurred to me: everyone had airconditioning - first world problems.
 
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