Book Board Chat

lookwhatbobfound But you have to be a bit careful with the 'hot water tank' method. If you are on city water you want to make sure that you turn off the incoming valve so that your hot water heater water doesn't become contaminated [all those boil water notices] when the water lines water pressure gets low. Then you want to make sure you turn off your hot water tank either at the switch or breaker [or both is best] because if the power comes back on and either 1] you forgot to turn the city water back on, or 2] city water isn't working yet, then the hot water heater is working with no water in it and you seriously risk fire.

Also, it helps if you drain out the hot water heater occassionally. Did the down stairs one this spring. Gets any crude deposits out that might have settled in [or rusted from the inside of the tank].

beth in FLA we are FLAT. Yes, they use towers, but they use pumps also to keep the pressure up. [they also use pumps in lift stations to move the sewage too, a whole nother issue]. The main water source for Tampa, south of me, is a resevoir which draws from the hillsborough river. Pinellas county, where I used to live, got all of its water from other counties. In great big monster pipes -- basketball players might have to stand on tipie toe to touch the top. and those pipes move the water underground. then pumps pump it up into towers, or just push it into the regular lines.

After Andrew, one of the big problems getting the sewer and water going again [I knew someone from Church who was a city worker spent months over there helping them get things working again] was that salt water had pretty much gummed up the whole sewer and water pumping systems and everything had to be replaced -- and then they didn't have the power, used generators. He and two others left Pinellas with a truck towing a large generator and fuel for it. Had all sorts of replacement parts. Then they found out what had really happened [the news didn't get out fast]. He emptied the truck out in a dry damaged/shot pump station they found and sent it back for whole pumping systems while starting to work on fixing that. Plus, they kept getting their generator 'liberated' for this or that need. He didn't mind, because they generally put the generator to good use, but it continually kept his work from being done.