Day 4 - cleansing the pipes

Sadly, while I was at work, I completely missed the attaching of the temporary lines to our house's water intake pipes. I came home yesterday and here is what I saw:



It looks like they've done the entire block already. Quick work!

Here's a close-up of one of the valves that I got from the morning:


I guess maybe it's easier for them to just cut the hose off from the last time they used it. I can't think of any other reason why there would be those little stubs on each end. They must re-use all the parts for the temporary water inflow and it's just quicker to cut them when they are pulling them out. They probably have miles and miles of the small plastic hose they use to attach to these valves. I just really wanted to see how they connect to our house.

A weird thing I saw was this hose, connected to one of the valves, trailing along the sidewalk to the north, turning around the corner on Villeneuve (past the Kingdom's Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses) and eventually going into a drain.






Today, I spoke with the inspector, who was very friendly and forthcoming. He explained that once the pipes are put in place, they flush them out with chlorinated water. The hose that I saw was the output of that flushing. Once they are cleaned, they open up the hydrant to which they are connected and then take a bunch of water samples. These go to a lab and they wait until they get a positive result that the water is safe for drinking. He was hoping they would get the analysis back by the end of the weekend. Once they get that, then they switch the water source for all the homes on the street, from the old one to the temporary one.

Here is a picture of the hydrant from which our temporary water will be supplied. As you can see, the water is flowing (and leaking a bit!).




So if all goes well, Monday will be the day that we'll be drinking and showering from water provided by that very fire hydrant! I can hardly wait.