Major Water Main Break in Bowness Area

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by Canadianman

Last 5 months my water bill has been for 7 m^3.


Aside from shorter showers, making sure the dishwasher/washing machine is totally full, and using the water I run while waiting for it to get hot to water my garden, I'm not sure what else they need me to do...

Drink less water.

Use grey water to boil pasta.

If it's yellow, let it mellow.

When you dry off after the shower, toss your towel into an industrial centrifuge to extract all possible water drops and reuse it to brush your teeth.

Redirect the drain from your washing machine to a bucket and use that bucket to fill your toilets.

Redirect shower grey water directly to a reservoir under your house for use for your toilets.

Come on we can get more creative here!

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

I'm on the outside looking in.

Will be interesting to see if calgary can band together for the greater good and do their part to conserve water use.

My faith in today's calgary is relatively low. It's not the tight knit community it once was.

20 or 25 years ago the city would have this problem handled (there was also half the population though).

[Looch City]

I think majority will follow the no outside water use...but probably not willing to inconvenience or whatever for indoor restriction.

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by Looch City

Drink less water.

Use grey water to boil pasta.

If it's yellow, let it mellow.

When you dry off after the shower, toss your towel into an industrial centrifuge to extract all possible water drops and reuse it to brush your teeth.

Redirect the drain from your washing machine to a bucket and use that bucket to fill your toilets.

Redirect shower grey water directly to a reservoir under your house for use for your toilets.

Come on we can get more creative here!

Re use bath water for boiling hot dogs, double the wieners double the fun!

[Bigtime]

So what are folks averaging for monthly usage?

We're a family of 4 and average ~11m^3 per month.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

So what are folks averaging for monthly usage?

We're a family of 4 and average ~11m^3 per month.

43m^3 in the winter months for 7 of us...

[keratosis]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Re use bath water for boiling hot dogs, double the wieners double the fun!

Don't forget the buns.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

So what are folks averaging for monthly usage?

We're a family of 4 and average ~11m^3 per month.

3 in our household (wife, adult daughter, and myself). We average <10m3 per month - 7 was our last reading. Had two higher months last summer when we were watering outside.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

I'm on the outside looking in.

Will be interesting to see if calgary can band together for the greater good and do their part to conserve water use.

My faith in today's calgary is relatively low. It's not the tight knit community it once was.

20 or 25 years ago the city would have this problem handled (there was also half the population though).

Last winter power use was significantly cut when the emergency alerts went out and it was sufficient to avoid brown outs.

In Covid disease spread rates went up and down pretty much as restrictions were removed or implemented. Most people when asked will do their part. The minority that doesn’t will loudly complain.

[Skaloper]

Good to know that 60% of the water comes from the Feeder brake impacted. Seems like to me the city needs to Split that feeder so no line ever hold more than 25%.........

[GreatWhiteEbola]

Originally Posted by Canadianman

Last 5 months my water bill has been for 7 m^3.


Aside from shorter showers, making sure the dishwasher/washing machine is totally full, and using the water I run while waiting for it to get hot to water my garden, I'm not sure what else they need me to do...

[curves2000]

Restaurants use an insane amount of water due to the amount of ice/drinking water/waste and sanitization that needs. Things like having glasses and silverware sparking clean from a pure aesthetic perspective will lead to 2 wash cycles per load in a lot of place.

You can tell the owner/operators of establishments that are cognizant of costs for water/sanitization/labour with how they handle glassware in their business. A new glass for a pint of beer is normal or a different type of wine. Bringing a new glass of water or pop every single refill has always been a waste of water/ice/straws, detergent and labour. There are exceptions to this of course.

I don't know if this has been brought up at all but given this crisis, does the city water works department have enough man power working to fix this issue? Could a few people from outside of Calgary with knowledge of this specific infrastructure be helpful?

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Skaloper

Good to know that 60% of the water comes from the Feeder brake impacted. Seems like to me the city needs to Split that feeder so no line ever hold more than 25%.........

It's a good idea, but every time you want to use a pipe half the size you'll actually need to use 4 pipes to achieve the same volume (further reason my earlier out-loud-thinking was dumb). Which probably also increases the potential failure-points four-fold? I don't really know anything about laying pipe though.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

It's a good idea, but every time you want to use a pipe half the size you'll actually need to use 4 pipes to achieve the same volume (further reason my earlier out-loud-thinking was dumb). Which probably also increases the potential failure-points four-fold? I don't really know anything about laying pipe though.

[Benched]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

So what are folks averaging for monthly usage?

We're a family of 4 and average ~11m^3 per month.

we're just a couple and we use 10-11/month. wonder if it's the soft-water cycling the system every so often. Combined with a lot of dishwasher/laundry due to sports/gym and being pigs/eating at home all the time.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by getbak

Question for those in the know: Does timing matter when using water during this? If I take a shower at 2AM, when demand is lower, is it better for the system than taking one at 10AM? Or, does it matter?

My understanding is that any water use depletes the supply in the distributed network of storage reservoirs. With limited ability to replenish your local supply reservoir, the challenge we face is how cumulative daily consumption is out pacing what can flow into the storage reservoirs

[GGG]

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7227911

So it looks like we are short 100 million liters a day. So 100,000 m^3/ day. A big water hauler can haul 40m^3. So you could truck water around where it’s needed. Say is 24 loads a day you 1000m^3 per truck so 100 trucks hauling water around the clock could solve the water draw issue.

[Zary's-Mustache]

Originally Posted by GGG

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7227911

So it looks like we are short 100 million liters a day. So 100,000 m^3/ day. A big water hauler can haul 40m^3. So you could truck water around where it’s needed. Say is 24 loads a day you 1000m^3 per truck so 100 trucks hauling water around the clock could solve the water draw issue.

Do you actually believe there are just 100 water trucks just sitting idle waiting to do this job?

Where would this water come from?

[Hockeyguy15]

I'm doing my part and drinking beer instead of water.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

Do you actually believe there are just 100 water trucks just sitting idle waiting to do this job?

Where would this water come from?

The water would come from the water treatment plant. My understanding is this is an outflow pipe from the water treatment plan to the city of clean water. So the challange is to get water from the water treatment facility to the storage locations so it can bypass the broken section. If this is wrong then trucking wouldn’t fix it.

As for the trucks the question isn’t are there 100 trucks standing idle. The question is are there 100 trucks that are doing less important things that could be paid to suspend what they are doing.

Trucking is expensive though like $10 a cube so about $1 million per day and let’s say you need to pay double to get them to stop the regular activity.

You also don’t need to do the full amount. If you truck half the amount you double your reserve life. I’ve done this at 1/20th the scale for a different commodity. If you put the required resources to it could be done.