Aaarrrgh - Again!

[Wombat]

Somehow, somebody left the valve on our new 1250gallon water tank on and the damn thing is empty! After all that rain a few months ago and now the weather is pretty dry - it's all gone. Felt like killing something when i found out!

sigh...........must get over these annoyances.

Nev

[Chickpea]

That's really infuriating. There must be some kind of failsafe to stop that happening - a tap which somehow cuts off after a certain amount of time (like the ones in public washrooms), or a way of catching the run-off and returning it to the tank, or something.

[shiney]

Whodunnit? Or is it one of those things Nev?

We lose water from our water butt and we know who it is. Our 6 year old! Pesky kid.

[Wombat]

It's a gate valve, so I turned it off tight and removed the handwheel! that should slow the buggers down. Got rained on at the soccer in Sydney, not a drop out here.......................grrrrrrrr!

Frustrating!

It is just one of those things Shiney, just have to get over it!

Tired and grouchy so am going to bed!

Nev

[Boots]

ooh Nev, not good.. Kids leave a tap dripping around here and I turn into a Banshee. Dump a whole tank? Oooh...Far out, they'd be running for their lives!!!!

Are you able to install a metal ring-grip tap handle, that comes off after use and is returned to you for safe keeping? That would at least keep the 'locals' honest and deter any gypsies.

[digiveg]

I used to live up in the hills in n. California. The first year there it stopped raining in April and didn't start again until October, so taking care of the windmill (on top of a 112 ft bore hole running at 5 gals / minute) was a serious business - especially as from May - late June the wind hardly blew. Then we had a petrol motor, blasted thing. The result was stored in a 6000 gallon redwood tank. If the level dropped, the wood shrunk - and it took a huge amount of wetting to get it to expand again. Very wasteful.

In 1983 we set off for a 3-week Buddhist retreat with a very highly regarded Tibetan lama, only expecting to be able to stay for 1 week - 'cos I was supposed to be in charge of the water, and the only other person up there while we were away had polio as a child and couldn't deal with it herself. And, as we all grew our own food, we went through an awful lot of water!

Anyway, after the first week we were just about speechless. This guy was amazing - answering our questions as we thought of them, but before we spoke. At the end, I went to see him to say goodbye and told him we had to leave to take care of the water.

'It's ok to stay', he replied calmly. 'The water is fine.'

We took a chance and stayed for the full 3 weeks. When we eventually returned, I ran up the hill to the windmill. The ground all around the tank was sopping wet, and the tank was completely full. When I saw our neighbour the next day, she started out furious: 'Where the &*%$*£ have you been!!!' she yelled. 'We must be almost totally out of water!! The wind didn't blow for the whole time you were away!!'

When I told her the actual situation, she just couldn't believe it.

Cool, huh?

[Wombat]

That is one cool story - Makes me feel better, thanks Digiveg

Nev