Things We Take For Granted #346: How Do You Cope During Water Shortages?

I washed my hair in my bathroom today. This may not seem like a big deal - and normally it wouldn't be.

But ever since Dublin introduced nightly water cut offs last week, my household's plumbing has been unreliable, to say the least. In fact, the crappy water pressure after the water comes back on the morning after the nightly shut-down has caused not one but two airlocks in the plumbing system, which meant that for several days over the last week we've had no hot water and NO WATER AT ALL UPSTAIRS. I have never been so glad to have a downstairs loo, even if it is in an extension next to the utility room and is technically "outside the house".

shower

Anyway, the first airlock made its presence known when the water decided to stop running last week, just after I got into the shower after a run. You haven't lived until you've tried to rinse off the suds while sitting in your bath hoping to get a trickle of water out of the hot tap. The arrival of a plumber left me €80 poorer but at least I could get clean. Until the same thing happened again two days later, on a Sunday.

And because the water issues have meant that plumbers are in high demand, we couldn't get one to come out until Tuesday morning. It could have been a smelly few days, but luckily my parents live nearby so we could use their shower.

tap

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After a week of this I've got used to filling up jugs before 8 o'clock in the evening and washing my face at night in a bowl of hot water heated by a kettle like some sort of Victorian person. But the whole thing made me really angry.

Not just because the capital city of a supposedly developed country can't provide fresh running water to its citizens (despite the fact that the government has been aware of the problem for decades), but also because I had to fork out €160 because of this incompetence - the plumber said the water pressure was simply too feeble to fill up the tank adequately, which caused the airlocks. Luckily my husband and I are both in regular employment with a small mortgage so we could afford to pay for plumbers, but for some families that unexpected expense would mean they couldn't eat properly this week.

8oclock

Of course, it could be worse, at least we've always had water during the day. The plumber told me that during the last serious water shortages during the big snows of a few years ago, his area was without any water at all for weeks on end, relying on tankers of water which drove around the neighbourhood all day. At least SOMETHING is coming out of the taps, even if it's a funny colour and stops entirely at eight in the evening.

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So have you ever been badly affected by water shortages? What are your tips for coping with a lack of uisce? And do you share my rage at the powers that be?

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