The dilemma at the house isn’t so much the lack of power, it’s the lack of power for extended periods of time. (see previous post for background info) 12 hours without power a day are manageable, problems arise when the power is out for longer than 12 or so hours. Last night it was 24 hours, which started to be a problem.
Why you ask? One main reason: water. Water gets into our house by pump. There are two water tanks on the top of the house that store water. As you may have guessed by now, the pumps need electricity. When the electricity is out it’s still possible to take a shower, but water pressure is based purely on gravity. So even though my hair is 12 inches shorter than the last time anyone saw me, it still took forever to get the shampoo out of my hair. (Think trickles of water coming out of the showerhead.) So am I really complaining about a little water pressure?
No, the real problem is what happens when the tanks no longer have water in them. (Obviously, they’re empty.) And with no electricity to refill the tanks, the bad water pressure seems pretty appealing. They think (key here is that no one really knows) that the tanks would normally last about two days, but we have twice the amount of people that normally stay in the house right now. So that means one day or so of water.
Enter the little generator that couldn’t. (I probably shouldn’t be making fun of it since we need it again tonight.) So last night there was a rather hysterical scene involving two generators, 4 guys, me (holding the flashlight), a cut-up water bottle (make-shift funnel), a few liters of petrol, and lots of electrical cords. The big generator didn’t work, so after a significant amount of spilled petrol, we tried the little generator. After lots of horrible noises, a few things flying out of it (I’m referring to bugs) and some great-smelling smoke, it turned on.
What does our little generator sound or look like? Take apart your lawnmower. That’s exactly what it is as far as I can tell. There just aren’t wheels or sharp blades. It sounds exactly like a lawnmower too- ridiculously loud and noisy.
So for too brief a time we had partial electricity in the house- fans only. And we supposedly filled the water tanks up, at least partially. Then the little generator that could became the little generator that couldn’t. (And no, it was not as simple as us running out of petrol.)
So the question is... what happens when I leave the office in a few minutes and head home. Will the bureaucrat in the office have ordered our transformer part in time for it to have arrived and been installed by today? I’m thinking… doubtful.
And more importantly, since we all took ‘showers’ this morning and the tank was only partially filled… well, add that idea to the no fans, and I’m sure we’re all going to smell great at work tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment