There is nothing coming out of any faucet in the house!! I don't have any signs of water pipes busting in my house. I suspect a broken pipe outside since it is just 9*F. I don't see water in the street or my yard. I have called the emergency water number (answering service) but I think its gonna take a while. Dang Holiday. Dang cold weather.
I can't wash my face, brush my teeth, make coffee, nada!
Nothing makes me more thirsty than knowing I don't have water!!
wow, that happened to our house in Brooklyn one year. It turned out that the pipe to the water main in the street collapsed. We had to call the Dept of Environmental Protection. Then the city came and fixed it. Took a day or so, sheesh. Bottled water.
I don't know if it's just me, but incidents like that makes me realise just how thin the layer of "modern civilized" life is - it doesn't take much to see that the world isn't all that different now from a few hundred years ago, and that when things go wrong we are pretty darn vulnerable.
We got down to -5 last night in Los Alamos! I'm sorry your water isn't working, maybe head to the store and pick up a few gallons of drinking water in case it takes a while to get it working again.
We used to have our pipes freeze inside our cellar when it was very cold. They don't necessarily burst just because the water has frozen. I would take a hair dryer, set it on medium, and blow it along the pipes as close to where they come into the house as possible.
Eventually I invested in some electrical heat tape for one section, but the water would still tend to freeze up near the entry point.
The utility guy came by and put a heat stick at the water main to house connection. He said it would take a hour or so. There is a dribble now. I hope it gets better. Could it refreeze overnight again if its not free flowing?
Gale - you have my sympathy and I definitely count in my blessing to include not being below zero. And at least I can get washed and dressed to go out in a presentable fashion to get a coffee and water!
Jay - I have no idea where they come into the house. I think they are under the cement slab of the house and under the cement of the driveway.
My dad was a plumber and when there were water main breaks he was called out to repair. It was always the middle of the night and the coldest night of the year. Miserable.
Thanks everyone - I will survive. I was just surprised as its never happened before and it wasn't any more colder than other years.
Somewhere, ideally in the house, you should have a shutoff that controls water coming into your house. Ours is by the hot water heater. Just a good thing to know in case a pipe should or something should ever break inside the house.
If it rarely gets that cold where you live, the outside pipes may not be buried deep enough to keep them from freezing at 9*.
Anywho, wherever your water comes into the house at, make sure it's warm, if it's in a cold corner or closet, you may need to put a little heater in there, or simply open the door, so heat can get in, or some heat tape.
If it's an outside issue, hope you can keep the heat stick a few days! No water sucks!
I am in Northern Ireland at the moment. It's probably not reached the news outside the UK, but here it's a big story even in the mainland that we have no water. It's been off for about 8 days and is due to be off another 5 days. Nobody has water, they are giving out emergency supplies but it's 12l per household whether you are a single person or have 6 kids, you have to boil it before you can use it and it tastes repellant, supermarkets are selling out of bottled water and limiting purchases to 3 per customer, you have to bring your own bottles to the emergency supplies and then stand in line. Not too awful if you are young and able, a serious problem if you have no car and are very elderly or if you have babies you have to take with you to stand in line. Nobody in authority is bringing water to people in need, it's up to friends, neighbours, churches, etc. to bring supplies to people who are housebound and you can't drink it anyway!
Yet elsewhere there are no bans on ridiculous water uses such as running a car wash right next to a street of houses who have no drinking water. They are washing cars with drinkable water and people are queuing 10 feet away to take home some dirty water in buckets. The water company has the powers to issue a ban on using hosepipes but they have refused to do so, and the government has not required the people with a working hosepipe at the car wash to supply drinking water to the residents next door who are trying to filter and boil their 12l allowance of unsanitary water so that it's acceptable enough to drink. It's a joke.
Accidents and unexpected thing happen, but there is no way someone should be operating a car wash when water to home supplies is being turned off due to insufficient water pressure!
I don't have any water this morning!
Dang cold weather.
