Over Flow.

Several days ago we were getting a bit of a drizzle, but not a big deal in terms of heavy rain, when we started to hear water pour down onto the tile in our back garden (yard).  We looked out the window to see a large stream of water pouring down from somewhere and pounding down right next to our BBQ grill.  I looked up and saw a small 1" plastic pipe coming out of the small eve of our house - 3 floors up!  I had never noticed this pipe before and had no idea what was going on.  Why would water be pouring out of the eve of our house?

Being clueless, I checked in the front of our house to see if Peter's car was there - thankfully it was!  Neighbor to the rescue . . .  I hit his door bell and asked him if he might have any idea why water was continuing to pour out of our house!  

In a couple of minutes Peter was up on the 2nd floor (third level - as we have a 'main' floor, 1st floor and 2nd floor) of our house, in our bedroom - climbing on a ladder inside the house into our attic!  To my surprise there is a very large water storage tank in all the houses in our estate (sub-division), located in the attic - almost directly above our bed!!  We could have a whole new meaning to the term 'water bed'!

Water is pumped into this storage tank and used to 'gravity feed' all the toliets and showers in our house.  Ahh, that is why plumbing is very quiet, and also why there is very little water pressure - especially in the small shower on the 2nd floor.  This tank has a float in it that shuts off the water once the tank is full (just like most toliets in the states work) - or at least is supposed to shut off the water!

Somehow, our little float got stuck open and water was continuing to be pumped into the tank, and now out onto our patio through this 1" plastic over flow pipe!  See the picture below to get a closer look at the pipe.  At any rate Peter fixed the problem and agreed to come back for a steak dinner BBQ for saving us from a flood!  So we are now working on a date that will work into everyone's schedule for an American Steak BBQ . . .  can't wait!