Sin Agua
Sin Agua is Spanish for "without water". Coincidentally, that was also name of my high school alma mater, Sinagua High School.
Sin Agua is a great way to describe the week Wife and I just had in Old Mining Town. One of the drawbacks to owning an older home is the need to have to pay for repairs or replacement of things that are either worn out or were neglected and never dealt with by the previous owner(s). On the upside, having these major repairs/replacements done demonstrates what kind of neighbors a person has.
On Sunday, I was watering our outdoor plants most of the day, but turned off the water before the sun went down. Later in the evening, probably around 8:30-8:45, Wife said she heard water running and asked if I was still watering outside. I stated that I was not, so we ran around to all the toilets, sinks, faucets, and other modern water using apparatuses to determine if any were leaking...they were not. Then Wife asked if our (old) house has a water main shut off. I stated it was out by the street. When we went out to the water main, we saw water coming up from out the ground...like a spring! It was running down the street & across the street. It has been running long enough that it had run down and filled up the meter box. I called our water company, who came out to turn off our water (and charged me $35 for the "service", which I personally think should be a duty, not a service). I left a message with our plumber & requested he come out the following day to see if he could fix the problem. Our neighbors (who are wonderful human beings btw) offered us a 5-gallon jug of drinking water to use for the week.
On Monday, our plumber came out to assess the situation. He determined that the pipe could not be too old and too rusted to be repaired and recommended replacement of the entire water main pipe. UNFORTUNATELY, he could not do the job himself since he is:
A.) only a one man company,
B.) is insanely popular & busy, and
C.) felt he didn't have equipment required to do such a job.
He referred me to a few other places, who flat out refused to do it as well either because they were also popular and busy or felt that job was beneath them. So I called another local plumbing service, who said they could do that job and would try to get it done within the week.
So yesterday, the new water pipe was finally installed! The new pipe had to be re-routed and bypass the old pipe since the old pipe is underneath some concrete. The inspector needs to come by on Monday, so we have a huge ditch in our front yard at the moment, which cannot be filled in until the inspector comes out on Monday. I'm told the plumbing company will fill the ditch back in and will put our yard back the way it was. That remains to be seen...
So what was it like reverting back to living in the 19th century with no running water in our house for one week? Well, I'll tell you:
1. Each morning I brought in 2 buckets of water to flush our toilet & refill it again. I filled the buckets using the outdoor water spigot from our neighbors house. We only flushed the toilet once per day and only used it for #1's. If we needed to do a #2, we walked around the corner to use our church's bathrooms. We washed our dishes using the church's kitchen, but honestly we didn't cook very much this week for obvious reasons.
2. No showers or baths. We used our friend's shower on Tuesday and yesterday morning I did a sponge bath.
3. We brushed our teeth using water from the borrowed 5-gallon jug. We filled up a small glass of water, dipped our toothbrushes in it, and then brushed out teeth. We would rinse and spit with some of the remaining water, before rinsing the toothbrush with what was left.
I will say the 5-gallon jug saved us and we used that to make coffee, fill water bottles, and other things for which we needed drinking water.
All for this morning!
Sin Agua is a great way to describe the week Wife and I just had in Old Mining Town. One of the drawbacks to owning an older home is the need to have to pay for repairs or replacement of things that are either worn out or were neglected and never dealt with by the previous owner(s). On the upside, having these major repairs/replacements done demonstrates what kind of neighbors a person has.
On Sunday, I was watering our outdoor plants most of the day, but turned off the water before the sun went down. Later in the evening, probably around 8:30-8:45, Wife said she heard water running and asked if I was still watering outside. I stated that I was not, so we ran around to all the toilets, sinks, faucets, and other modern water using apparatuses to determine if any were leaking...they were not. Then Wife asked if our (old) house has a water main shut off. I stated it was out by the street. When we went out to the water main, we saw water coming up from out the ground...like a spring! It was running down the street & across the street. It has been running long enough that it had run down and filled up the meter box. I called our water company, who came out to turn off our water (and charged me $35 for the "service", which I personally think should be a duty, not a service). I left a message with our plumber & requested he come out the following day to see if he could fix the problem. Our neighbors (who are wonderful human beings btw) offered us a 5-gallon jug of drinking water to use for the week.
On Monday, our plumber came out to assess the situation. He determined that the pipe could not be too old and too rusted to be repaired and recommended replacement of the entire water main pipe. UNFORTUNATELY, he could not do the job himself since he is:
A.) only a one man company,
B.) is insanely popular & busy, and
C.) felt he didn't have equipment required to do such a job.
He referred me to a few other places, who flat out refused to do it as well either because they were also popular and busy or felt that job was beneath them. So I called another local plumbing service, who said they could do that job and would try to get it done within the week.
So yesterday, the new water pipe was finally installed! The new pipe had to be re-routed and bypass the old pipe since the old pipe is underneath some concrete. The inspector needs to come by on Monday, so we have a huge ditch in our front yard at the moment, which cannot be filled in until the inspector comes out on Monday. I'm told the plumbing company will fill the ditch back in and will put our yard back the way it was. That remains to be seen...
So what was it like reverting back to living in the 19th century with no running water in our house for one week? Well, I'll tell you:
1. Each morning I brought in 2 buckets of water to flush our toilet & refill it again. I filled the buckets using the outdoor water spigot from our neighbors house. We only flushed the toilet once per day and only used it for #1's. If we needed to do a #2, we walked around the corner to use our church's bathrooms. We washed our dishes using the church's kitchen, but honestly we didn't cook very much this week for obvious reasons.
2. No showers or baths. We used our friend's shower on Tuesday and yesterday morning I did a sponge bath.
3. We brushed our teeth using water from the borrowed 5-gallon jug. We filled up a small glass of water, dipped our toothbrushes in it, and then brushed out teeth. We would rinse and spit with some of the remaining water, before rinsing the toothbrush with what was left.
I will say the 5-gallon jug saved us and we used that to make coffee, fill water bottles, and other things for which we needed drinking water.
All for this morning!
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