What Is More Inconvenient? Water or Electric Cut Off

Lee

Lee

Senior Member
Location
Chatham, Ontario
At the moment I am sitting here with steam coming out of my ears as this is the 5th time this year we are without water. Water main break in the park. Keeping jugs of water is a must here. Can't flush the toilet, no shower, no brushing teeth grrrr And I did plan on watering the garden.

Yet I worry more when the electricity goes out. A freezer full of food could be ruined if out for too long. A lot of seniors in the community with C pap machines. And air conditioning is welcome on these hot days.

Heat......anyone been without heat for a time?
 

Water. My family has always had backup generators since we're rural and lose power for several days to a week during severe weather, ice storms. But even without generators, I still go with water as the more important of the two for hygiene and hydration.

Hope your water is back flowing soon!
 
Water can be bought.. very inconvenient but it can be bought...

No elecricity and your stuffed. Can't be bought anywhere, most don't have spare generators.. so no electricity, and you can't make a hot drink.. can't have light, heating... fridge/freezers shut down, and £££'s of food is wasted, can't have a hot shower, no computer, no TV.. just about everything we do relies on Electricity
 

All I know is that soon there is going to be a revolt in this park. We pay darn good money for our lot rent and there has been talk of hiring a lawyer to make the landlord respond with some answers. We are in Canada, landlord is in the USA and was using covid as an excuse to not come over.....times up Mr. Landlord, no more excuses. There is a plan for new roads but obviously it makes no sense to repair roads without repairing water mains first. We need a time frame. This is not a slum park, just a slum landlord.

When the water does come back on the notice will go out to boil water until test results allow us to drink it. Since they do not test on weekends it will be Monday before testing and then 3 days after that.
 
I guess I've been lucky. I've been without both, but not for very long. I keep spare water jugs just in case. Our electric utility company has some kind of sophisticated switching system to re-route power in an emergency if needed to restore service.
 
AnnieA said:
Water. My family has always had backup generators since we're rural and lose power for several days to a week during severe weather, ice storms. But even without generators, I still go with water as the more important of the two for hygiene and hydration.

Hope your water is back flowing soon!
Click to expand...

It seems like backup generators are more of a necessity than a luxury for homeowners these days .... around here it is.
 
Loss of utilities, for more than a few hours, can be a real problem. When we moved to this rural area, one of the first things I bought was a generator. Luckily, we've only needed it a couple of time...and for only a few hours...in almost 20 years....but that could change anytime a severe storm passes through the area.
 
Water would be worse. Like Gary, I have a Generac that will come on automatically after whatever length of time without power that I set it for. Right now, I think I have it set for 15 minutes. Now I have to go look to see how much time I do have it set for. With the warm weather, I don't want to go too long without my refrigerator running. I also have a water dispenser in my house for coffee and cooking, but I could never shower under it. Not enough room. :LOL:
 
Lee said:
All I know is that soon there is going to be a revolt in this park. We pay darn good money for our lot rent and there has been talk of hiring a lawyer to make the landlord respond with some answers. We are in Canada, landlord is in the USA and was using covid as an excuse to not come over.....times up Mr. Landlord, no more excuses. There is a plan for new roads but obviously it makes no sense to repair roads without repairing water mains first. We need a time frame. This is not a slum park, just a slum landlord.

When the water does come back on the notice will go out to boil water until test results allow us to drink it. Since they do not test on weekends it will be Monday before testing and then 3 days after that.
Click to expand...
You can hire a lawyer to hold your rents in escrow until the repairs are made. You are not withholding the rent money.
Good luck!
 
With it being hot right now, it would be the electricity due to needing air conditioning since I'm in an upstairs apartment but grateful, I don't get the afternoon sun.

When I owned that house, I had a new heat pump installed but the thermostat went out more than once. I didn't have AC a couple of days over the weekend but since it was a stick built house, myself and the cat (just had one at the time) survived.
 
I've had water shut off twice due to breaks since I moved here. The electricity is more important to me especially since I need it to do breathing treatments. The power goes out here regularly when the wind blows or it storms. Usually a 2 hr. wait. They've started doing rolling blackouts in the summer because our power generator can't keep up with the demand. Those are anywhere from 15 min to an hour in the middle of the peak of the day. They did that this winter too. That tends to really irritate me. I don't understand why they charge us more and then we get less product instead of fixing the issue.
 
Lee, how terrible! I feel for you. This is why I keep gallons of tap water here for bathing and cleaning. Granted, I can't store that much but it would last me maybe three days at least (now that my son lives here too). I'm glad I learned how to take a good "bird bath" since I was living home with my parents. We also keep bottled water here for emergencies. My son just took two cases to his storage bin that were given to me when we were under a boil water emergency in our city and surrounding towns for over a month. At the time, his town was not affected. He buys Poland Spring and Crystal Geyser; I buy Kirkland and Niagara was given to me, so we have multiple cases of water. I would advise you to start storing water for emergencies like we do, since this keeps happening.

Having no water is ultra inconvenient but for those who have freezers stocked with food, losing power for more than a couple of days also would cost them a lot of money. I had a friend who lost $5,000 worth of food due to an extended power outage. The only freezer I have is the one in my fridge but I would hate to lose what's in my fridge and freezer...and it wouldn't be nearly as costly.
 
I was without power in April due to a tree coming down in front of my apartment building. That was the first time since I have lived here. My water still worked though. Just cold water.

I would have to say for me, I would rather have the water out rather than the power. I have plenty of water that I buy every month and I could buy more. But without the power the hot water doesn't work. Nor the elevator which is how my water is delivered to me or how I would have to get out of there to get more. In summer I need air conditioning and in winter I need the heat.
 
The worst, for me, is the loss of internet or cell service.

I can deal with the water or power being off, but I like to get some sense of how long the outage may last and how wide an area is impacted.

Being without water for a day is fairly common in the winter due to water main breaks.

Being without power is rare.
 
News for perspective:

www.theworldcounts.com › challenges › planet-earth › freshwater › deaths-from-dirty-water

Deaths from Dirty Water - The World Counts​

Dirty water is dangerous Every year 3,575,000 people die from water related diseases. This is equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every hour. Most of these people are children (2.2 million). Really dangerous Unclean water and poor sanitation have claimed more lives over the past 100 years than any other cause.
https://www.theguardian.com › business › 2006 › nov › 10 › water.environment

Dirty water kills 5,000 children a day | Business | The Guardian​

Nov 10, 2006Last modified on Fri 10 Nov 2006 06.39 EST
Nearly two million children a year die for want of clean water and proper sanitation
while the world's poor often pay more for their water than people in...
Britain or the US, according to a major new report.

"The United Nations Development Programme, in its annual Human Development report, argues that 1.1 billion people do not have safe water and 2.6 billion suffer from inadequate sewerage. This is not because of water scarcity but poverty, inequality and government failure."
 
Lee said:
All I know is that soon there is going to be a revolt in this park. We pay darn good money for our lot rent and there has been talk of hiring a lawyer to make the landlord respond with some answers. We are in Canada, landlord is in the USA and was using covid as an excuse to not come over.....times up Mr. Landlord, no more excuses. There is a plan for new roads but obviously it makes no sense to repair roads without repairing water mains first. We need a time frame. This is not a slum park, just a slum landlord.

When the water does come back on the notice will go out to boil water until test results allow us to drink it. Since they do not test on weekends it will be Monday before testing and then 3 days after that.
Click to expand...
This sounds like a nightmare.
 

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