jayeless
jayeless

Apparently there’s a water outage in my local area and it’s doing my head in. Gotta ration toilet trips. Can’t wash my hands. (At least there’s hand sanitiser 😖) Can’t drink any water with my lunch. Southeast Water estimates it’ll be back in three hours… so far away, ugggggh

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Miraz
Miraz

@jayeless Soooo… This is when you buy a 5 litre bottle of water to keep in the cupboard for next time. 😀 Good strategy anyway to have 5 litres per person — 3 days worth — in case of emergencies. I call ours 'earthquake water’.

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Miraz
Miraz

@jayeless @Miraz That was ambiguous — 5 litres per person per day of emergency water. Keep 3 days worth on hand.

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odd
odd

@Miraz A good strategy for sure! I use more water though. (I think we use more than we think we do).

My biggest motivation is to be so prepared that I’m never gonna have a Prepper tell me “I told you so…”. @jayeless

www.ready.gov

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In reply to
Miraz
Miraz

@odd Oh sure. We all use way more water than that. But in an emergency that’ll get most people by if they're careful. And it's a pain to store too much water — you should refresh it each year and it takes a lot of space.

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odd
odd

@Miraz True. I actually contacted the officials for food and drink safety to check how often water needs to be changed to be safe, and they said “you can keep it for years, if you keep it cold and dark”🙄 Well, I am in an apartment, so it’s at room temperature. So I change it more often. And I have hydrogen peroxide AND cleansing tablets just in case. Come to think of it, I might have become a Prepper! 😅

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jayeless
jayeless

@Miraz This instance took me off-guard because we basically never have an unannounced outage like this, but that does sound like a sensible precaution because evidently, it can happen! I'll have to be careful how I phrase the suggestion to my partner though, because knowing him, I'll come home one day and find every cupboard in our flat filled with bottles of water… 😂 @odd

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dejus
dejus

@odd @Miraz We keep a bunch of water (plus other emergency supplies), since we don't have any tap water when the power goes out, being on a well. We have three 5-gallon (about 19 litre) jugs, mainly for accessory use like flushing toilets, not that we usually bother with them, plus just got some smaller jugs for more convenient use.

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Miraz
Miraz

@jayeless Heh, yes, that could be a bit too much. Unexpected outages can come from thunderstorms / lightning strikes, tree branches falling on power lines — all sorts of events, so a few emergency supplies can be quite handy. In Aotearoa New Zealand of course, we're a bit aware of earthquakes as potential disruptors.

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Miraz
Miraz

@dejus @odd In a pinch we could take the inspection cover off our rainwater tank and lower a bucket on a rope, but having a few bottles set aside is easier. We likewise need electricity for the pump to work (and now for our UV steriliser to do its thing).

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odd
odd

@Miraz Now I got the image of a hand cranked pump in my mind. Maybe a bit too much. @dejus

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dejus
dejus

@Miraz @odd Yeah, we could take water from our pond in an extended emergency, but eww. (We do have stuff to make it safe, though.) Easy enough to store water.

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dejus
dejus

@odd @Miraz Yeah, a hand-cranked pump might be more hassle than its worth, though I wouldn't mind the option in a pinch. The ideal solution would be a Tesla PowerWall battery bank and solar panels, so we never lose power. But those are way too expensive. A propane (LPG) powered whole-house generator is another option, though also expensive. We don't lose power often enough to be worthwhile.

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Miraz
Miraz

@dejus @odd When we first moved here 5 years ago there were frequent power outages, though often only micro-outages. Then a year or two back they did a lot of work and now we seldom get them.

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odd
odd

@Miraz We typically have about one a year, some years not even one, and it’s usually fixed quickly, half an hour at the maximum.

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