Water main being replaced soon. Should I worry?

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
Got a letter today stating that starting in a week or so, the city will be replacing the water main on the street I live on. No estimated completion date or anything.
I typically fill my systems straight from the tap with a garden hose and I am assuming there will be some level of contamination from the work. How do you guys think I should handle this, or do you think im overreacting?
I have a collapsible 200 gallon holding tank available. I was thinking id just fill that sometime next weekend before they start. That would give me enough water for a full change and a week or two off top offs.
The other option is just to be patient and let it all run through the filter. Its a hydrologic stealth 150 with no RO filter.
Should I use the tank or is it overkill? Theyre just about to start flowering and I dont want to throw a wrench in there.
 

spek9

Well-Known Member
I'd fill the tank.

What if something goes wrong with the work, and they have to make an extended emergency repair three days after the initial work is completed?

It doesn't hurt to have a couple hundred gallons of water around. Could come in handy for the plants, or even drinking and washing with.
 

etownpaul

Active Member
I do this kind of thing for a living so I’ve got a few thoughts:

- They are likely replacing an old main with a new plastic main. The new plastic pipe won’t have any solvent glues to worry about, it uses a vegetable based grease (think crisco) on rubber gaskets and stainless clamps to hold it all together.

- the main thing you really need to worry about is solids making their way into your water. Old scale deposits on your house’s feed line can get knocked loose and into your water supply. Also it’s nearly impossible to do that kind of work in a trench without getting at least some dirt in the pipe.

- some areas require the installation crews to chlorinate the water in the newly replaced pipe before putting it back into service. So you might get a strong blast of chlorine in the first bit of water.

I would fill your tank just to be safe. Use your water for normal household activities for a bit then next time you need water for your plants everything will be flushed out enough to not give you any problems.
 

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
I do this kind of thing for a living so I’ve got a few thoughts:

- the main thing you really need to worry about is solids making their way into your water. Old scale deposits on your house’s feed line can get knocked loose and into your water supply. Also it’s nearly impossible to do that kind of work in a trench without getting at least some dirt in the pipe.
The middle point was my main concern.
I'll go ahead and fill the tank some time next weekend. Thank you for your input everyone. I'm up a creek without clean water so I'm going to go with the better safe than sorry.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
I have a 300 gallon vertical storage tank that I keep full of filtered water just in the event we have an unexpected outage. It came in handy when we had a main break and it was a good 2 days before we had service restored.
 
Top