Life in Thaiville - water-esque thoughts

[The Snark]

It was announced that they would 'blow' the water lines today and the water would be off all day. This was of significant interest to me for several reasons.

First, we are at the very end of the water system and get a slight dribble or negative pressure about 8 hours a day. Living in an area where there are many dairy farms and back flow preventers are optional and often never even heard of, this suck instead of flow is a serious concern. Then there is the water at the best of times. With the water main many millimeters below ground, 300 in some places, the water is often delivered warm. Or I should say, soup. We had a tree fall over a couple of years ago and it ripped up the water main. I had the opportunity to look in the 4 inch pipe. It had a solid half inch thick coating of black slime inside. Obviously they do not chlorinate the water. I chlorinate the water myself in our tank. Using a test kit I added chlorine until the warm vile liquid lost the musty rotten odor then tested. Oh goody. All the way to the top at 4 parts per million. That is exposed to the sun all day swimming pool level.

Second there was the word in the announcement Blow. Well, yes, I know the pipes periodically need to be blown. In the fire service I have blown a few myself. For fire trucks sucking on hydrants, that is self defense. Hook the 4 inch hard suction line to the hydrant, watch the house blaze merrily as the fire fighters pull the discharge hoses, crank the engine up and give them 100 PSi to start, bringing it up to 150 slowly. Or hearing a sudden WHUMP!, the engine dies and the smell of burned clutch plates pervades the air and you know exactly what happened as the pump sucked several tons of mud and sediment sitting in the bottom of the pipes.

However, this is Thailand. More to the point, this is the technologically advanced metropolis of the Village of Puffed Rice. Blowing the pipes might just have several different connotations, few, if any of them, likely to be good for the community or ones personal state of mind, contentment and tranquility. The land of a 90 foot long home brew rocket that failed to light so they poked it with a bamboo pole until it did... and they did. The land where using a small cooking gas bottle instead of a large fire cracker suspended under the balloon would make a much spiffier pop... though calculating the extra weigh was somewhat deficient. And these same people are going to 'blow' our water line.

With phrases running through my head ranging 'this isn't going to be good' and wondering if the universal tool found on every public works job our stalwart community service employees have engaged in, a claw hammer, will be competently wielded, I got on my bike and toodled on over the the water treatment plant. That by the way is a euphemism. 6 five hundred gallon tanks standing on a flimsy fifty foot tower with an assortment of pipes and plumbing beneath so... sophisticated... it has completely defied me and my extensive engineering background from deciphering what comes from where, where it goes, and several whys. Whys as in, why is that pipe just sticking up into the air 35 feet at an odd angle and going nowhere? Why is a 2 inch discharge from a submersible pump connected first to a 4 inch pipe then 2 4 inch pipes, then combining back together into a 2 inch pipe to make the trip up to the tanks? Why is one of the pump control panels always showing a green light when it hasn't been connected to anything in the 5 plus years we have lived here? And so on. Lots of whys. Lots lots.

At the water treatment facility which I nicknamed Le Douche Sale some time ago there is a very large truck. It is painted red. In fact, it is a dump truck. Precariously parked in it's bed, unsecured, is a very large machine. About 8 feet tall, 12 feet long, and wide enough to have bent one of the sides of the truck bed when the crane dropped it in. The machine is yellow. I suspect red vehicle with bright yellow machine attached makes it Very Important. I ride in a circle around this machine. As it is a newer machine yet to be modified by Thais, I am able to discern it is a high pressure pumping system. To be precise, a really neato goody I've seen in action in the past and was once referred to by my buddy who worked at Arcata public works department as an 'ejaculator'. It is pretty simple in it's operation. You shoot a large volume of water into it's 2 inch intake at a couple hundred PSI and out the high pressure discharge comes, pardon, pulsed very high pressure sludge and sediment motivating splooshes. You can even adjust the rhythm of these err, orgasms.

But there is one minor problem. The ejaculator, procured from who knows where, is designed to blow high pressure steel pipes up to, at a guess, 24 inches. Fortunately the Norns intervened in the impending destruction of every 4 and 6 inch section of plastic pipe on our towns entire water system. IE This is Thailand. I note the operator of red truck and yellow monster is asleep in the cab of the truck. This is good. I deduce the reason for his nap is the water tank truck that feeds the portable pipe blower has failed to show up.

It is a lovely day. Lots of blue upstairs and a wonderful assortment of puffy white glops demanding I take my bike out of the long haul out to Maejo and up into the hills. 2 ton Tessie, 21 kilograms of fun complete with teddy bear, snake and dog stick, and exorcist vomit green squeeze horn, is up for it. Off we go. It's a perilous ride. It's been raining and it's green green and GREEN everywhere. Perilous as my rubbernecking has almost plunged me into several canals over the years. I enjoy the trip immensely, taking my time, take the extended dodge the mud puddles and thick red clay goo way on back. 4 hours later I stop in town, do some shopping, then decide on the local restaurant for chicken stew lunch. That local restaurant happens to reside almost under the water tank tower of the water treatment plant.

I note when I arrive the ejaculator operator has moved and is now asleep under some bamboos off to the side. The cab of the truck being in full sunlight by then. No water tank truck is in sight, thankfully. And the vile soup is still not being delivered to the township. I do a quick mental workout and figure we can last 4 to 5 days on the water in our tank. Things are back to normal on Cannery Row.

[Thanyaburi Mac]

Love it!! Just another fun day in the LoS....

Thanks for the chuckle, and happily, I'd finished my coffee so didn't ruin the keyboard here in front of me....

Mac

[cornishcarlos]

"In the fire service I have blown a few myself"

Got my Friday off to a great start, still chuckling

[kannot]

Hey isnt the great Thai nation so great it cant even get half decent water to its people in a country with a very high rainfall..............never mind lets have a hi speed train or give the farmers "riceprice"....or a cheap new car..............the sad part is probably many Thais would appreciate that over the water, s"wat makes Thailand "amazing"

[cornishcarlos]

Water will be more valuable than oil in the near future.

Don't be reliant on anyone for your water supply.

If you own land (or wife owns land) and you intend to stay there for the foreseeable future, get a borehole.

Don't be held ransom to poor service from the government

[Seastallion]

They're doing maintenance on our city's water system too.

Wish I'd known.

We have very poor pressure upstairs, and that is where we shower and usually toilet, so we have a 80 litre plastic garbage bin for a reservoir, with a dipper.

Yesterday, it sprung a leak, so after the last dipper-shower, I emptied it to let it dry overnight in anticipation of a repair job today.

Downstairs, there's just a 10 liter bucket reservoir for the toilet. Usually the water is adequate down there.

Someone didn't refill the downstairs bucket properly.

So, we wake up this morning to almost no water and no reserve.

Our solution was I'd use the last water for my toilet, and wifey would go get her hair done and use the hairdresser's toilet (they have a tank).

Wifey wants to know why they decide to do maintenance on a holiday, and I want to know why they don't do it at midnight when most people aren't using it.

[pigeonjake]

Water will be more valuable than oil in the near future.

Don't be reliant on anyone for your water supply.

If you own land (or wife owns land) and you intend to stay there for the foreseeable future, get a borehole.

Don't be held ransom to poor service from the government

hi carlos,

yes the way to go,

we have 3 on our farm, one down at the pig pens and 2 for the house,

its great water, and we didnt have to go that far down, 18mts was the 3rd water they hit, my mate told me dont let them stop drilling till they hit the 3rd water, and we never run dry,

we have auto pumps for the house, no tank, just plumbed strait from the pump to the taps,

and down at the pigs we just have the normal plug in pump, but im going to be putting auto pump down there too when i get all the water buts with a ball cock valve, make it easier for us

jake

[fdimike]

Snark

I don't know if you write for a living or not. However, I would just bet that you could make a bundle putting that talent of yours to good use. Thanks for the whimsical look into the operations of a typical Moo Ban here in LOS. You certainly made my day.