Tales of Water
I learned that the water department in my town is really on the ball last week, and it's probably only going to cost me an enormous water bill.
I went to a ball game a few Mondays ago (the A's beat Cleveland in a game that went to the last pitch), and with the 6:10pm start I went straight to the stadium from work. As such, M was the one to return home to discover that one of the hoses to the washing machine had broken during the day. Since those houses are always under pressure, this meant a vast quantity of water had flooded the basement. Well, attempted to flood. There's a floor drain right near the washer, and although the floor and nearby wall were a bit damp, the water all went down the drain and the dehumidifier took care of things nicely. M turned off the water, we went and bought some new hoses, and everything is fine.
From a damage perspective, this was far less hassle than a similar hose breakage in my parents house back when I was in high school or junior high. There, the washer and dryer were in the second floor hallway, so when the hose broke (while the washer was in operation, as I recall), water went flooding down the walls of the first floor and even out of the light fixture of my first floor bedroom. Some mold started growing inside the wall that I turned out to be allergic to, and eventually my parents had those walls torn out and rebuilt. And all of that was when a break happened while everybody was home and the water was turned of very quickly.
The more interesting part of this was that the very next day there was a hang tab on our door knob from the water department saying "we noticed unusual water usage at this address yesterday, please call us." When I did they said "hey, you used more water on Monday than you do in a usual month." In this case I clearly knew what the problem was (the hose must have been broken for a few hours at least), but it's still cool that the smart meters give that level of granularity and rapid response. And it turns out that when I cancelled my landline I must have failed to update my number at the water department, which given that I've never called them before wasn't too surprising. If I had, they apparently would have texted me within a few hours. On rare occasions, all this technology is actually useful.
I went to a ball game a few Mondays ago (the A's beat Cleveland in a game that went to the last pitch), and with the 6:10pm start I went straight to the stadium from work. As such, M was the one to return home to discover that one of the hoses to the washing machine had broken during the day. Since those houses are always under pressure, this meant a vast quantity of water had flooded the basement. Well, attempted to flood. There's a floor drain right near the washer, and although the floor and nearby wall were a bit damp, the water all went down the drain and the dehumidifier took care of things nicely. M turned off the water, we went and bought some new hoses, and everything is fine.
From a damage perspective, this was far less hassle than a similar hose breakage in my parents house back when I was in high school or junior high. There, the washer and dryer were in the second floor hallway, so when the hose broke (while the washer was in operation, as I recall), water went flooding down the walls of the first floor and even out of the light fixture of my first floor bedroom. Some mold started growing inside the wall that I turned out to be allergic to, and eventually my parents had those walls torn out and rebuilt. And all of that was when a break happened while everybody was home and the water was turned of very quickly.
The more interesting part of this was that the very next day there was a hang tab on our door knob from the water department saying "we noticed unusual water usage at this address yesterday, please call us." When I did they said "hey, you used more water on Monday than you do in a usual month." In this case I clearly knew what the problem was (the hose must have been broken for a few hours at least), but it's still cool that the smart meters give that level of granularity and rapid response. And it turns out that when I cancelled my landline I must have failed to update my number at the water department, which given that I've never called them before wasn't too surprising. If I had, they apparently would have texted me within a few hours. On rare occasions, all this technology is actually useful.