Water Shortages in Dublin . . . Are You Kidding Me?

For the past 10 days or so, our water supply has been turned off from around 7:30 PM until about 7 or 8:00 AM!  Why in the world would water be a problem in an area that gets as much rain as Ireland?

The answer seems to be infastructure.  Many water pipes in the city are very old and, under normal circumstances work just fine.  The coldest winter in decades, however, seems to have had a widespread effect and caused hundreds or even thousands of small leaks.  The compound effect is that water is dissapearing without the usual geysers when a water main bursts. 

How do you find water leaks in a system when there are no obvious signs?  The unusual cold will likely cost Ireland million of euros that they can't afford.  So, for the time being there is no water at night in many neighborhoods like ours.  'No Water' is a bit of an exaggeration, however, since the only place in most houses that gets water directly from the city water supply is the cold water in the kitchen sink!

In most Irish homes, water coming in from the city supply is pumped to a storage tank in the attic.  When a toiiet is flushed, or a shower is turned on or a sink faucet is used (other than the kitchen) the water is coming via gravity feed from the tank in the attic!  So, the good part is that when the water is turned off, toilets can still flush and bathroom sinks still work until the storage tank empties.  In our case that usually lasts until the water is turned on again in the morning.  We just can't take showers, for the most part, until after the water is back on!

Talk to you soon, God has been very good to us already in 2010!