John F Dean

Hi Wis,

Welcome to Permies.

I suspect the primary problem is that you are dealing with human beings.   At peak, the company I was CEO of had over 50 employees.  Even my best employees messed up more than I would have liked. More often than not, they messed up by committing the most obvious mistakes.

Hi Jack,

Welcome to Permies.

Hi Shane,

Welcome to Permies.

With maybe 100 yards of driveway between the meter and my house, I figured I needed a pro.  I had zero confidence as to where the leak was. The plumbers first thought was that the regulator on the meter had blown and flushed debris down the water line and partially obstructed it.  When he ruled that out, the only remaining answer was that the problem was on the other side of the meter. Anyway, at one point in my life I would have joyously grabbed a shovel and went to work replacing everything on my side.  At 75 I didn’t have the energy and knew I needed a pro. Of course, I have lived in this area since the late 80s, so I knew which pro I needed.  I set aside over $1000.00 for worse case ,so in one sense I got off light.

At 11:00 AM my water was back to normal.   That means our water district had a leak for 2 weeks.   I have not checked out the condition of the township road. After 2 weeks of running water, it has got to be interesting.  Anyway, it’s laundry day today.

Permies is normally as wild of a site I get on. I even dropped my membership to Chess.com.   I will go to You Tube for advice on repairs. But those are rare.

The answer isn’t cistern.  In Illinois they can’t be used for potable water.

We are on a rural water line.  On Thanksgiving evening our water volume dropped significantly. I left a message with the water department. They promptly returned my call on Monday morning.  Of course they assured me the problem was on my side of the meter.  Interesting, with all my faucets shut off,  the meter wasn’t moving.  I called a plumber who showed  up 12/5.   He said the problem was on their side of the meter and charged me $95.00.  They replaced the meter, and I still had next to no water. The plumber showed up today , determined next to no water was coming through the meter. He called the water department.  They showed up. They weren’t sure where the problem was.  My plumber suggested that  it might have something to do with the pond that was forming across the township road. My plumber charged me another $130.00.  It cost me  $ 225.00 to hire a representative the water department would listen to.  Even then, they weren’t too eager.

Hi Samantha,

I can see where an old small sweater could be put to good use.