This is a test of the 72 hour water supply, this is only a test

When we bought our house almost 2 years ago the first thing we noticed was the water. It was so hard and it smelled awful! You never felt clean after a shower. Considering this was a new house it was really ugly to peer into the shiny new white toilet only to see rusty orange (which has since been cleaned out and it is shiny white). We had never lived anywhere with well water but most homes we looked at had them and they all had something in common. A top priority quickly surfaced – a water softener and carbon filter. The other homes had been around awhile so those owners had obviously learned this lesson that we were just learning. Our basement is one large expanse of completely unfinished space. In one corner sits our wellmate small holding tank and this is where our water softener was also installed. The carbon filter is attached to the ceiling and encased with a thick plastic blue housing. It hangs down almost 2 feet. So Friday night Nick went downstairs to find a cable and noticed water on the floor which was coming from the carbon filter. He found the o-ring was not working properly. In the process of holding onto the heavy thick plastic housing, half full of water, while trying to fix the o-ring at the top, it slipped out of his hands and fell to the cement floor. Now one might think that considering how heavy and thick this plastic thing is it would hold up to such a fall. Nope! It had at least a 7” vertical crack that was almost impossible to see until you connected the housing back up and let the water pressure flow through, quickly showing you right where that crack was.

We do not have a shut off valve to bypass the water filter. So, this meant we needed to keep the water turned off or we would have a mess downstairs! It was Friday night around 8pm and therefore too late to call businesses to see if we could get a replacement. Online the part was available but it wouldn’t have been processed until Monday and even then overnight shipping for a Tuesday delivery would have cost an extra $100+. Saturday we found that there were no businesses open. So we accepted our little test and decided to live without water until Monday when we hoped to be able to get this fixed.

To make it more interesting I was trying to prepare for a Tastefully Simple event I needed to be to very early Saturday morning and also trying to get a head start on soup preparation for our monthly Soup Saturday project for Dan. I learned just how often I rinse my hands while cooking! Fortunately we have a supply of backup water. Probably not enough for a REAL emergency but it was a great test of a 72 hour crisis situation. We put a large 7 gallon tank of water that had a spigot on the kitchen counter next to the kitchen sink. When tipped on its side we could easily wash our hands with it. We had bottled gallons of water that we could use for drinking and things like making soup and brushing teeth. Because the outside water does not pass through the filter we could fill up buckets of water to keep next to the toilet so we could flush occasionally as needed. Nick even took some of the outside water and boiled it to do dishes the old fashioned way. I must admit that when I helped to finish a few I enjoyed the extra warmth of the water. Or maybe I was just missing not having the instant access to hot water. All in all it was a bit of an inconvenience but a really good test for a real emergency. We do in fact have running water now! So I guess it was less than 72 hours. Our local Culligan office, who installed the filter originally, had a housing they sold us for about the price online (minus the hefty shipping charges). I’m sure they would have charged us more but they had one that had been in a truck and was dinged up a bit but had never been used. I can live with a less than smooth housing unit. The good part – no cracks! We are back in business. Now the laundry can begin again. I think I will start with a fresh cup of ice water. I think we have some ice left. . .