Finally have had a little rain.

raining off and on here, expecting severe storms this afternoon/evening. should make loading up the truck fun. with only one n.

Hope it slows down here before my flight out today. Just a little fog in atlanta and forgetaboutit. :roll:

I have a wet commute!

..do I need to make some phone calls?

not to sound mean here, but i think a lot of people who waste water have never had to live with a well in their lives. my parents have a well, and after we had lived there 4 years after mom and pop built the house the well went dry and they had to drill a new one. my pop was the official water monitor - and he actually would time our showers. i got used to cold showers then because there was no waiting for the water to warm up at home i can still throw down a 3 minute shower....

I think many people waste water because they just don't think of it as a finite thing - 3 minute cold showers is a bit extreme, I'd just be happy if they'd turn off the sprinklers when it's raining so hard my windshield wipers are on high!

We have finally had a couple of days of off and on rain. I was standing at my kitchen window night before last and I heard this strange noise coming from outside. I ran outside to see what it was.....it was pouring rain. I hadn't heard it in so long I forgot what it sounded like. Now, if it will just pour for couple more days maybe some of the cracks that have appeard in my walls will close up.

Here is my problem and many more folks here.

Drought Causing Foundations to Crack.


North Alabama's drought has destroyed crops and drained lakes. Now it could cause your house to shift, costing you big. Signs of an extreme drought are visible outside this brick rancher in South Huntsville. The ground is so parched, the house shifted off its foundation. "Extensive damage. The brick had pulled away from the freeze board. It was not even touching the windows. It pulled the caulk away," says Ben Bayless of Alabama Foundation Specialists. Ben Bayless of Alabama Foundation Specialists says lack of moisture in the ground caused this home to shift and damage the foundation. You can still see cracks in the brick and where the sidewalk was patched. The damage inside obvious too.

"You will go in and out of your bedroom shut the door every night wait you push on it won't shut if that happens it's a sign of a foundation problem," says Bayless. It's a job to move the house back where it belongs.

Not a problem if you have the right tools. Special equipment is used to lift the structure. Then brackets and helical piers are added for support.

The brackets are placed under the foundation, while screw-like pipes are driven into the soil to provide stability. There's nothing cheap about repairing a damaged foundation. This homeowner will pay dearly for this year's extreme drought. "The total bill will be over $30,000 dollars," says Bayless. If you notice cracks inside or outside your home or problems with your doors and windows, your foundation may be damaged. It's a good idea to call a foundation specialist for an estimate.


My problem was not near that extreme, but I did have to have my house jacked back up. Luckily, we were putting on new siding and we just fixed the foundation problems before the new siding went up. I never knew that a drought could cause these problems.

Craziness!

Is there a Macgyver preventative solution like pouring your gray water around your foundation? A couple buckets a day keeps the foundation cracks away! :funn:

I think many people waste water because they just don't think of it as a finite thing - 3 minute cold showers is a bit extreme, I'd just be happy if they'd turn off the sprinklers when it's raining so hard my windshield wipers are on high!

when i moved to my current residence - i thought it was a major extravagance to take a bath in hot water that actually covered my arse

not to sound mean here, but i think a lot of people who waste water have never had to live with a well in their lives. my parents have a well, and after we had lived there 4 years after mom and pop built the house the well went dry and they had to drill a new one. my pop was the official water monitor - and he actually would time our showers. i got used to cold showers then because there was no waiting for the water to warm up at home i can still throw down a 3 minute shower....

I broke down and took a hot bath yesterday. Then I spent a heck of a long time bucketing the water out to my homemade cistern.

I have a well, too. It's a blasted well rather than a bored one; the guy who takes care of it (when it needs it, which is rare) says that it's big enough to park a truck down there. Plenty of water, right?

It has gone from 20 feet to 13 feet recently. The water restrictions only apply to folks on city water, but I want to yell out the window to all the others who are watering from wells to be careful, dadgummit. The aquifer is finite, too.

Yesterday I was at a client's house, and we were discussing the madness. She has put buckets in her house. She grew up as a missionary's kid in India, so she has experience with water conservation. She said that you waste about 2 quarts of water every time you wait for the water to heat up. She has been using this to water the plants I'm installing. She's also a surgeon, and she said that she has been cringing every time she scrubs at the hospital. The sinks turn off automatically; only one has a lever that can be pressed with the knee to turn it off while scrubbing even though she only uses the running water for about 30 seconds per scrub. She estimates that 5 gallons are lost in the time that each doctor and nurse scrubs.

It really makes you think.

back in the day, when i lived at home, my mom had a washer that she could move the drainage hose over to the utility sink and she would save the water from the towels or whites. then when she did pop's work clothes the hose would suck that water back up and use it. do they still make these ?