You would think that in a facility like this one, I would not have to worry about water. I got into the habit of checking for hot water; it failed on the average of once a month. And then one morning there was NO water. That has happened twice. Supposedly, it's all fixed now.

I fill the Brita pitcher every night, just in case. This is no life for an old woman.

Glad the water's back/ What a nightmare. We've had the pipe freeze where it comes in under the house from the well and I've had to slither into the crawlspace and use a heat gun to thaw it but I was younger then. The crawlspace is unheated so our plumbing depends on heat tapes and insulation. When the temps keep dropping to zero and below as they have recently our biggest fear is getting up in the morning to dry taps, or hearing the pump start to cycle through then shut down due to ice in the line. Just about drives me crazy with anxiety sometimes. Thank goodness that your problem was the city's problem to fix and not yours.

Man, you do have a lot of snow. Remember they said this winter was going to be easier than last. No polar vortex they said!

Wow, Bex! With all you and Paul survived when you were first married, I guess your marriage can survive just about anything.

Hi Carol! Wow, 30 days of that? We only endured a half of a day really, 13 hours, of no water, but in the beginning, as I wrote, it was from the end part of January to sometime in March and that was really bad. Especially as we were new homeowners, had just been married a few months before, and neither of us had ever had to deal with house maintenance before.

One of the other things that also happened to our house at that same time, which I neglected to include in the story, was that all the electrical power to the 2nd floor level stopped working, and we had to get in an electrician to rewire the whole second floor. This house was a rat's nest of bad wiring and bad workmanship, so over the last almost 30 years we have had to redo just about everything, a little bit at a time.

During the blizzard of '78 we didn't have water for 30 days. It was awful. The line was frozen from our house to the road. We melted snow to flush the toilets. Neighbors let us sower and get water jugs filled. I hope I never have to do that again. I feel for you.

Bonnie, that's the reason that you run only the COLD water tap until the water runs clear... BEFORE you turn on any hot water taps. As soon as you turn on hot water, the water heater will try to fill itself up again, and it will get the dirty water if you haven't run the cold water tap until clear water comes out.

Also, it's a good idea to run only the COLD water tap in the basement, from a faucet that doesn't have a screen or filter on it (like ours do) because that brown water with particles will get trapped behind the screen... so just run the COLD water tap in the basement full force til it comes out clear.

Class dismissed!

Gosh with dirty water coming from taps what is happening to water going in the hot water heater?

I remember when dad set our trailer up when we arrived from S. Dakota I told him we needed a heat tape on the water line. Nonsense he packed a tube around it, filled with insulation. He didn't count on the tube settling into the ground 1/2 inch which promptly froze the line. :-)

Yay for trickles of water! It's a start!

It is now 8:12 pm and we have our first trickle of very brown disgusting looking water coming from our bathroom cold water tap.

Letting it run til clear before turning any hot water on.

Over 12 hours with no water. I hope it's truly fixed!

Sorry you're going thru that. It was a right pain for us when we had to deal with it in the summer. Winter would be awful!

Looks like we have about the same amount of snow on our decks. DH just went out to shovel ours off and it was better than 2 feet up the sliding glass door. I'd guess about 30 inches. And he thought I was kidding when I told him he might want to start shovelling from outside instead of trying to open the door!

So sorry you have this to deal with and the high snow...BUMMER MESS
BTW...Huge thanks for all photos

We are not that organized Maggie! It doesn't happen often enough for us to be always prepared like that. I used to have jugs of water in the basement but over the years Paul would throw them out... and when a water main break occurs, it's too late to fill them up! He has gone over to his friend, Don's house in Marblehead to refill our 2 jugs... but here it is 4:35 pm and we STILL HAVE NO WATER! This is making me nuts. At least we do have power...

I feel for you Bex! We get pump water from our well. When the hydro goes, the water goes! So we are without water frequently at the country house. We have a system, jugs of water just the right size for one flush of the toilette, so we can flush if it is necessary. We also keep lots of drinking water on hand, in jugs, for those frequent times when we have no water. For us, no water, no lights, but we still have heat!