A Local good news story for a change

[orchidfan]

I live in a gated Moo Baan (security entrance etc) in Pathum Thani, north of Bangkok.

 

Yesterday, the metropolitan water supply stopped for some unknown reason.

 

Like all the houses in this Moo Baan, we have an underground water tank supplied with water by the MWS, and pumped to the house via pressure pump which, if it runs out of water and gets hot, automatically cuts off.

 

So here we are with no water to the house as the tank had been (unwittingly emptied watering the garden, showers, washing the car etc)......meaning no showers, no water refilling toilets etc.

A call to security  was enlightening as they informed us "yes the water supply has been cu off !!!

 

But now the good part, about an hour or two later along come a Fire Department water tanker  going from house to house to see who needed water ( it was dark by now and mosquitoes out in force).

Luckily I was out in the carport and hailed them down as they crawled along the internal road.

Two guys jumped off and came over. First young fella only spoke Thai, but the older man decked out in red fireman's outfit took over and spoke near PERFECT English.

 

He quickly assessed the situation and after a few intelligent questions, located our underground tank and proceeded to removed the very heavy concrete cover and tank lid and, bringing a long fire hose from the tanker, commenced filling our tank.

 

I then re-primed the pump and we had water again. (Everyone inside ran for toilets)

 

They then replaced everything correctly and ensured that I was happy that it was all fixed (he assured me that the "mains water would be back on again in about 20 minutes" - and it was !).

 

As they were leaving, I tried to offer them B100 each for their hard work and good response, but it was absolutely refused - no matter how much I insisted.

 

So, 3 things:

1/They knew what they were doing and went about it quickly and efficiently.

 

2/One at least spoke excellent English which made it all much easier ( on me....wife and family could talk to them in Thai but really had no idea what the problem was)

 

3/ They categorically refused even a small tip - a first for me after a couple of decades living here.

 

Well done to those guys!!!!

[Olav Seglem]

There you go:

A real christmas wonder :-)

And Santa, dressed as member of fire brigade :-)

Ho Ho Ho

 

[Andrew Dwyer]

Due to sporadic water pressure issues for the last 6 months ( don’t ask, it’s a long story ) here in Ayutthaya we have had 3 visits by water trucks and yes our experience has been the same.

Two guys working non stop to fill the tanks of the moobahn residents, a couple of bottles of cold water are eagerly accepted.

[brianthainess]

We always keep an emergency bin full of water in our toilet for such occasions, just to clean ourselves.

 If there was no supply and my tanks ran dry, then I would have to pay for a water tanker.  

[Andrew Dwyer]

3 hours ago, brianthainess said:

We always keep an emergency bin full of water in our toilet for such occasions, just to clean ourselves.

 If there was no supply and my tanks ran dry, then I would have to pay for a water tanker.  

Yes, we have 3 of those, 1 in our bathroom, 1 in the kids and one outside. We can fill these bins up slowly but it won’t make it up into the tanks ( an underground tank would be ideal ). In fact we have showered from these bins for the last 6 months !

Guy next door bought a small pump ( looks like a fish tank type ) and pumps water from a bin into his tank, I’ve been looking at ways to do it without using electricity but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

 

[brianthainess]

5 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

Yes, we have 3 of those, 1 in our bathroom, 1 in the kids and one outside. We can fill these bins up slowly but it won’t make it up into the tanks ( an underground tank would be ideal ). In fact we have showered from these bins for the last 6 months !

Guy next door bought a small pump ( looks like a fish tank type ) and pumps water from a bin into his tank, I’ve been looking at ways to do it without using electricity but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

 

I have one 1,000 liter tank  raised just high enough for it to enter the bathroom, we only have a single story house, just the old way of throwing cold water over you, going without a shower for a day won't kill you,  If there is no water the toilet just doesn't get flushed just one of those small bowls of water gets thrown in, and maybe a splash of bleach. Luckily our water is normally back in a day. Have even used the 20ltr water bottles for washing up.

[Andrew Dwyer]

22 minutes ago, brianthainess said:

I have one 1,000 liter tank  raised just high enough for it to enter the bathroom, we only have a single story house, just the old way of throwing cold water over you, going without a shower for a day won't kill you,  If there is no water the toilet just doesn't get flushed just one of those small bowls of water gets thrown in, and maybe a splash of bleach. Luckily our water is normally back in a day. Have even used the 20ltr water bottles for washing up.

I have a routine now, the kid gets up for school at 6 so i get up with him and open the taps to fill the 2 inside bins ( using the pump bypass ), around 7 am the water pressure drops off to a dribble as people are waking up and showering/washing clothes etc.

We use the bins for showering, watering the garden and filling the washing machine, everything else we use the pump and the 1500 litre storage.

 

Initially we thought it was a temporary thing but now we have adapted to it and the moobahn do actually tell us via a line group when the water will be completely turned off.

[orchidfan]

18 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

I have a routine now, the kid gets up for school at 6 so i get up with him and open the taps to fill the 2 inside bins ( using the pump bypass ), around 7 am the water pressure drops off to a dribble as people are waking up and showering/washing clothes etc.

We use the bins for showering, watering the garden and filling the washing machine, everything else we use the pump and the 1500 litre storage.

 

Initially we thought it was a temporary thing but now we have adapted to it and the moobahn do actually tell us via a line group when the water will be completely turned off.

Luckily Andrew the water to our 2 story house, 3 bathrooms and kitchen (they all are in this moo baan) and garden are fed from the underground tank (2000 or 5000 litres I think) via the pressure pump....so never any pressure problems, except if, as happened yesterday, the government water supply fails or is turned off.

 

As I mentioned previously, we had no idea of this cut in supply (it is extremely rare here,  maybe 3 times in a 5 year period ) so we were merrily using water everywhere until Mr Hitachi got hot and shut down.

Thank goodness for that auto function and not burning out the motor !

 

Incidentally, since reconnection, the "mains" water seems to be at 3 or 4 times the previous pressure.

(There is one tap on this mains line,in the garden, that I can turn on and check. But otherwise that water pipe runs underground only to our main storage tank.

 

[Andrew Dwyer]

14 minutes ago, orchidfan said:

Luckily Andrew the water to our 2 story house, 3 bathrooms and kitchen (they all are in this moo baan) and garden are fed from the underground tank (2000 or 5000 litres I think) via the pressure pump....so never any pressure problems, except if, as happened yesterday, the government water supply fails or is turned off.

 

As I mentioned previously, we had no idea of this cut in supply (it is extremely rare here,  maybe 3 times in a 5 year period ) so we were merrily using water everywhere until Mr Hitachi got hot and shut down.

Thank goodness for that auto function and not burning out the motor !

 

Incidentally, since reconnection, the "mains" water seems to be at 3 or 4 times the previous pressure.

(There is one tap on this mains line,in the garden, that I can turn on and check. But otherwise that water pipe runs underground only to our main storage tank.

 

When we moved in here 6 years ago the pressure would drop only at weekends but now it is any/every day.

Never had the water trucks until 6 months ago.

There’s a lot of construction nearby which I think is the reason for the decline in water supply, can’t see it improving unfortunately.

 

I even tried a makeshift hosepipe directly from the meter to the tank ( as there’s a few 90° elbows underground which I thought might restrict pressure ) but nope … it’s just p1ss poor pressure !!