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Another idea to balance the abundance of post-shutoff water.


J0hnm13

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The problem: When the water shuts off, you still have near endless water from all the fixtures, which many people seem to be complaining about, and for good reason.

 

The solution: Sinks need to be filled manually by the player before they store water for the shutoff. Toilets still come pre-filled but with dirty water. You only have extra clean water from the sinks you've gotten to already and you need to boil the toilet water. For showers, realistically the amount of water left in the pipes of disabled fixtures wouldn't fill a small glass in real life.

Different fixtures would interact uniquely too, for instance the water coolers in office buildings only have a finite amount of clean water from the start but can be refilled for later storage (even after shutoff). Thoughts? 

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All sounds well and good, but what about the bathtub ? I think you should use towels to stop the water from draining, also tablets to purify water and the ability to move a bbq so we can bring one to our home to boil the water in order to be safe to drink :)

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The bath tub would work just like the sink but with a much greater volume, and the idea with the tainted toilet water is simply to make it a last resort when the water shuts off. Moving the BBQ is already confirmed.

I don't know about you but my bathtub has a plug. 

The idea though is to treat water fixtures the same way as you do nonperishable foods. It's abundant if you actually gather it when it's there, and when it's used up it's gone.

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The bath tub would work just like the sink but with a much greater volume, and the idea with the tainted toilet water is simply to make it a last resort when the water shuts off. Moving the BBQ is already confirmed.

I don't know about you but my bathtub has a plug. 

The idea though is to treat water fixtures the same way as you do nonperishable foods. It's abundant if you actually gather it when it's there, and when it's used up it's gone.

if there where bags of ice at the store that could melt adding a small freezer to the fridges would be nice to preserve things longer and make ice. then put it in a cooler or bathtub for a poor mans fridge.

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I find it really weird that in USA the houses in the countryside dont have water tanks on their roofs like here in Brazil.

 

Its commom sense that in areas not heavily urbanized one would have water tanks installed in houses to avoid water sortages in case the pressure on the pipes drop too much.

 

I have tried to find the regulations for construction in USA but to no success. Does anyone knows where I can find then?

 

I ask because I have found a bit of information on the minimum water tank size in house based on the number of bedrooms in a forum, but I was unable to determine if it was from USA regulations or England regulations.

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In America, the Government wants you to be as dependent on them as possible.  So they actually pass laws preventing you from collecting rainwater.  If it's not the Government that's in your business, it's your HOA (Home Owners Association).  In the name of "keeping the neighborhood beautiful", they set up rules against water barrels, cisterns, chicken coops and all sorts of nonsense.  As for most people in America, they're too lazy to deal with a water collector and would probably consider it "ugly" anyways.  They are happy relying on the Government/corporations to feed them, cloth them, and entertain them.  Only the "fringe elements" are into survival prep, self-sustainability and self-reliance.  It gets more common to meet those people the further you get from cities and either coast.  Most people in rural America grow their own food and are self-sustainable either because they don't make enough money, their family has always done that, or that it just makes more sense than driving 20 miles to the grocery store.

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I am not talking about rain collectors. I am talking about that:

 

caixa+d+agua+tigre+1000+litros+brasilia+

 

 

Here in Brazil those water tanks are not placed outside the house. They are placed inside, below the roof. They are not visible at all.

 

Of course the size of each water tank is dependant on the size of the house and its roof.

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Oh, cool.  Nothing like that here in America, at least not mainstream.  Do you have to clean that out or de-mildew it at all?

Since water here in brazil is treated with fluor and other chems before it being pumped you only need to clean it once a year.

 

If you pump water from a well then you need to clean it regularly (every two months if I am not wrong)

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Oh, cool.  Nothing like that here in America, at least not mainstream.  Do you have to clean that out or de-mildew it at all?

Since water here in brazil is treated with fluor and other chems before it being pumped you only need to clean it once a year.

 

If you pump water from a well then you need to clean it regularly (every two months if I am not wrong)

 

 

Ew, I think even once a year would be too much for the "average American Joe".  I think the main reason why we don't have those here is that we very rarely have water outages.  I'm 35 years old, and have never had a water outage.  Even water outages due to water main breaks are big local news, and those get fixed within 12 hours, tops.  Do you have water outages in Brazil?

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Or water pressure drops in general.  Water and power are pretty constant here.  "Brownouts" are a little more common in cities during the summer, but even those have drastically been reduced since the 1990's.  We still have power outages during storms, but that gets people all pissed off and they start complaining big time.  Most power outages are resolved in a few days, in the most serious cases, under a week (like a hurricane or something).  I think a lot of Americans take for granted how reliable our water, power and gas are.

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Or water pressure drops in general.  Water and power are pretty constant here.  "Brownouts" are a little more common in cities during the summer, but even those have drastically been reduced since the 1990's.  We still have power outages during storms, but that gets people all pissed off and they start complaining big time.  Most power outages are resolved in a few days, in the most serious cases, under a week (like a hurricane or something).  I think a lot of Americans take for granted how reliable our water, power and gas are.

ye water isnt very rare unless you live in a desert. Even then if you can catch the rain in the falls you can have tons but you need a sturdy catcher, or like me you threw a plastic bag over a box, added some paint to the side and called this good. It lasted a good few storms until the water got too heavy, broke to bag, and crippled the box when it flooded leaving a soggy box and some plastic. Still we never really needed anything like this. But filling up the tubs, showers, and stuff like that would be nice. also find it insane that there are no garden hoses hooked up anywhere. That could be another source since at time there is bits of water left in them.

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Oh, cool.  Nothing like that here in America, at least not mainstream.  Do you have to clean that out or de-mildew it at all?

Since water here in brazil is treated with fluor and other chems before it being pumped you only need to clean it once a year.

 

If you pump water from a well then you need to clean it regularly (every two months if I am not wrong)

 

 

Ew, I think even once a year would be too much for the "average American Joe".  I think the main reason why we don't have those here is that we very rarely have water outages.  I'm 35 years old, and have never had a water outage.  Even water outages due to water main breaks are big local news, and those get fixed within 12 hours, tops.  Do you have water outages in Brazil?

 

 

Or water pressure drops in general.  Water and power are pretty constant here.  "Brownouts" are a little more common in cities during the summer, but even those have drastically been reduced since the 1990's.  We still have power outages during storms, but that gets people all pissed off and they start complaining big time.  Most power outages are resolved in a few days, in the most serious cases, under a week (like a hurricane or something).  I think a lot of Americans take for granted how reliable our water, power and gas are.

Its not that we have water outages frequently. Its that we like the adage "better be sure than sorry".

 

Since over 75% of the power here in brazil is from hydroelectric plants, we are very suceptible to weather changes in our power grid.

 

Up until the last years (5+) that was never a issue, but we had that culture of water tanks from a very long time (50+ years) so to us is simple commom sense that all houses, be then apartments or not, have a water tank.

 

Almost all apartment buildings here in brasil have a underground cistern to storage water that then are pumped to the roof water tanks and from there you have gravity gives pressure to the water that go to the apartments.

 

Some more "modern" cities like São Paulo have in the past 20+ years adopted (more because of building space issues) the USA model of water management and now there's a huge quantity of buildings there that are dependent of water being pumped directly to then. With the current hydric crisis, that have lasted for a couple of years now, many people in the metropolitan area of São Paulo are paying the price of not having cisterns and water tanks on the buildings...

 

Just food for though...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wish more American houses were designed with self-sustainability and disaster preparation in mind.  It could be that most people don't want to pay more for it.  Either way, I'm glad I know how to install them myself.  Now if only I had the money.... <_<

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I wish more American houses were designed with self-sustainability and disaster preparation in mind.  It could be that most people don't want to pay more for it.  Either way, I'm glad I know how to install them myself.  Now if only I had the money.... <_<

i agree. i also feel some sort of disaster prep should be taught to kids just because running outside in the apocalypse may not be the best idea. plus today's generation is basically zombies.

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To clarify what I said earlier.

 

The tradition of water tanks in houses and buildings here in Brazil is not due an idea of disater preparation or self-sustainability...

 

The fact is that most of the waterworks here in Brazil dont have the same level of pressure in the pipes that USA or other countries use. The pressure is enough to allow water to reach the water tanks of houses, but not enought to reach all apartments in a building.

 

You see, the pressure in the pipes is just right to reach 1-2 floor houses but not something bigger. Thats why buildings with more than 3 floors need cisterns and a own pump to fill the roof water tanks. That way (roof tanks) you can have pressure in the pipes for the water to flow properly (gravity at work here).

 

Some cities here, like São Paulo, have invested in a more potent pump system to allow water from the ground level to reach 3+ floor apartments buildings and other areas of the city that reside on high ground, but that leaves then vulnerable in the case of water sortages... much like USA it seens...

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The Romans did it with aqueducts and stone/lead/clay/cement piping, and where possible gravity fed reservoirs/siphons. They also made use of cisterns to catch rain water.

So, going with it's not as easy as "no pipes."

forgive me i used the wrong words. i just rushed but i meant pipers as in modern pipes and modern pumps/ technologies that made it possibly for a well maintained water source compared to today's means. they did use pipes and help lay the basics of plumbing. sorry for the confusion.

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