EDITOR – I’m glad some of you out there got a notice that eThekwini Water and Sanitation had been inserting water restricting disks to all water meters in the area. The first thing we noticed about it was when I went to have a shower early Thursday evening and found the water pressure was right down.
I informed my husband – who had to go out into the dark to look at the meter as we were sure we must have a major leak – only to find no movement on the meter at all.
We found out about it a few days later when my son-in-law advised us that the new washers had been installed in our area. Not only that, but that a yellow dot had been added to say that the washer had been installed, and then a red one added after that to say that the washer had not been removed.
Now it takes up to five litres of water running just to get the solar panel geyser on our garage roof to make its presence felt when I want to wash my hair, and even more litres when we want to shower, as our bathroom is further along from the pipe to the geyser. Then my son-in-law informed us that the Highway Mail website had warned that water could be cut off completely from 9pm to 4am.
Well, if they did resort to that, we just wonder what will happen when they turn the water on again. Burst water mains all over the place, probably. To add to the problem, my daughter’s washing machine blew up a week after the water restrictor was inserted, but we can’t prove it had anything to do with the water pressure.
We don’t think putting water restricting washers on our meters is the solution, as it doesn’t do any of the appliances or the water pipes much good, plus we know there are so many illegal water users, as Rick Couch said, and that if there is a water mains leak, it sometimes takes more than a day for them to respond. We are now looking at alternative solutions to our own water needs, like water tanks and use of swimming pool water.
We just wish someone at eThekwini Water and Sanitation had had the decency to let us know what they proposed to do.
Jenny Lee
Westville
