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From Drip to Rush
Apr. 10th, 2009 07:55 pmI was really annoyed Wednesday when I found out that HSV Utilities was going to shut off the water in our n'hood from 8am-2pm. Since I tend to work from home and JD's home w/ the kids, it was probably more inconvenient for us than most other households on the street. We filled both tubs with water and put a couple of pitches of filtered water in the fridge.
A little after noon, I flushed a toilet and water was coming out of the feed. Yay! The work was done early! I went to the kitchen and started the washing machine filling so I could do a load. WHOOSH, came the water. More water than usual was rushing into the washing machine. JD then comes and declares that the toilet she just flushed was already filled.
One of my biggest pet peeves about my house has been the low water pressure. My hopes of finding a way of fixing something around the house was spoiled as I learned my n'bors also suffered from low pressure. Let me define low pressure:
* Toilets take minutes to refill
* Only one water sprinkler can run at a time. If you hook one up in the backyard to the faucet back there and one to the faucet in the back...there is just enough pressure for them to slowly spray. It has been impossible to daisy chain or T-off sprinklers so I run two from the same faucet.
* Filling the bath 4" so the kids to take a bath takes about 15-20 minutes.
* More than half of the shower heads we've installed in the house wouldn't work because the pressure was too low.
But all of that has changed with whatever work the city utility did. The shower head in the master bath has a dial that varies the flow (open to closed). The only use we've had for this dial was to temporarily turn off the shower head so we could swap getting-in/out of the shower. The water is now coming out of the shower head so strong that she's turned that dial closed a little bit because the shower was stinging.
The big thing that made JD and I giggly was last evening. JD hopped in the shower, I started the tub filling for the kids' bath, and then I decided to start the washing machine. Even with the tub and washing machine going, JD had plenty of pressure. Previously, either the shower or tub would have slowed to a trickle.
*SQUEE!*
Now, let's just look at the water bill next month and try to not have a heart attack. :)
A little after noon, I flushed a toilet and water was coming out of the feed. Yay! The work was done early! I went to the kitchen and started the washing machine filling so I could do a load. WHOOSH, came the water. More water than usual was rushing into the washing machine. JD then comes and declares that the toilet she just flushed was already filled.
One of my biggest pet peeves about my house has been the low water pressure. My hopes of finding a way of fixing something around the house was spoiled as I learned my n'bors also suffered from low pressure. Let me define low pressure:
* Toilets take minutes to refill
* Only one water sprinkler can run at a time. If you hook one up in the backyard to the faucet back there and one to the faucet in the back...there is just enough pressure for them to slowly spray. It has been impossible to daisy chain or T-off sprinklers so I run two from the same faucet.
* Filling the bath 4" so the kids to take a bath takes about 15-20 minutes.
* More than half of the shower heads we've installed in the house wouldn't work because the pressure was too low.
But all of that has changed with whatever work the city utility did. The shower head in the master bath has a dial that varies the flow (open to closed). The only use we've had for this dial was to temporarily turn off the shower head so we could swap getting-in/out of the shower. The water is now coming out of the shower head so strong that she's turned that dial closed a little bit because the shower was stinging.
The big thing that made JD and I giggly was last evening. JD hopped in the shower, I started the tub filling for the kids' bath, and then I decided to start the washing machine. Even with the tub and washing machine going, JD had plenty of pressure. Previously, either the shower or tub would have slowed to a trickle.
*SQUEE!*
Now, let's just look at the water bill next month and try to not have a heart attack. :)
