Water about to be shut off. Household of 14 over Christmas.

[HelloVeritas]

Send prayers. Southern Water warning we could be without water later today and over Christmas due to burst water main.

We are hosting a large multi generational household this year of very excited family but I need help to plan ahead from the Mumsnet preppers.

I'm up now peeling all the Christmas veg while we do still have water.

Plan so far is:

1. everyone have a poo
2. use the pond for water supply to flush loos
3. drink champagne to remain hydrated
4. shave legs now while still possible

I feel that there must be more to it then that, what have I missed? 🤣

Can you see if you could rent a nearby community hall or something! One where the water is on clearly. I’d not have that many people with no water, we had an issue earlier in the year for 48 hours and it wasn’t nice at all. Felt very unsanitary.

You need to tell your guests. Frankly, I would hate to flog off to stay with a relative only to discover I was going to spend the weekend without water; I'd far rather know now so I could opt for staying at home and still have time to dash out and grab a turkey and some Christmas pud.

Think there are few facts that could change things that only OP knows.

1. Are guests in the same situation at home, with no ater? If so, it makes no difference who hosts
2. Are any guests staying overnight? In which case, warn them and ask them.to being water if they do come (either from their taps or a shop local to them that won't have sold out)
3. Has the water actually stopped? From everything I have seen,this is just a possibility of they can't fix the leak, rather than a certainty.
4. Are any guests elderly or vulnerable? I would be thinking about making alternative, safe arrangements for those first.

As I understand it (we're in Hastings) the new pipe is being fitted today but it will take time to flush water through once it's in place. They are saying we might only be without water tonight (we still have water at the moment). Dh is going to try and get some bottled water from wherever Southern Water have set up stations when he finishes work today. Hopefully any stoppage won't last too long. Flushing toilets and washing hands definitely seem to be the most important issues. Nobody should be stockpiling water from taps because of the impact on everyone else.

Have they given a prediction of how long it might be off? We get water outages several times a year with no warning, it usually happens after a power cut. But generally the repair is done within a day as it is considered a priority. Worst case they bring water tankers and pump through water from those until it’s repaired. Have they said it is going to be off for days on end?
I don’t even know what to suggest, other than getting clean and having drinks stocked! Good luck!

Hi to other Hastingers! We’ve only got eight for Christmas dinner but I am not looking forward to washing up in cold water 😬

Save the water you have. Make everybody poo in the pond.

Hi! I'm sincerely hoping it isn't a repeat of May Day weekend 2024 when it was off for days. Fingers crossed they're moving more quickly this time because it's Christmas (and it cost them a lot in compensation last year!).

Compensation? Is this for business or households? We’ve had many day long or overnight outages and never received as much as a bottle of free water! I’m curious to know more!

It can be for households but you have to have no water at all for fairly long periods of time - longer than a day iirc. Might be worth looking into though!

Lots of sensible suggestions to help you manage here already.

I would also call the water company (repeatedly if needed) and ask if they can dispatch water tankers while they are doing the repair. We had no water for a few days and our water company did this, the pressure was low, but we had clean water.

I was thinking 'ah, you'll be fine, flush the toilet with pond water etc' and then I thought 'TEA! IS THERE GOING TO BE ENOUGH WATER FOR ALL THE CUPS OF TEA?!?'

And I had palpitations and had to go for a lie down. Christmas without copious tea is not to be borne. Can you emigrate?

@Mimosa3andmore I bet we have fallen just below the time threshold for compensation (rather like with flight delays). However one summer we memorably had about 7/8 outages lasting several hours each, but because they were separate it probably didn’t count!

Fill up every container you have with water just in case. Good luck.

You can’t host OP people will get poorly

This. If people scoop one small jug and take it over to the sink they can wash their hands with it. And fill whatever containers you have with water for drinks and cooking eg big mixing bowl or similar. Fill the kettle and go and buy in a few large bottles of water.
Fill saucepans with water ready for cooking the christmas veg and get everyone bathed /showered thoroughly and hair washed.

They will not. I had multiple camping holidays as a child when water had to be carried from wells. My mother was very creative about how she used it. We never got ill.

Make sure people keep their hands clean, wipe door handles, bannisters etc with an alcohol wipe or cloth with disinfectant and keep a
supply of drinking water. It’ll be fine.

I work for a water company. They’ll probably be completing it within hours. Ask for bottled water.

We've just had our £680 of compensation from SE Water for the TW debacle - but that was a week of no water at all, and then 10 days of the boil notice.

I'd be really annoyed if I turned up for xmas dinner to be told the water was off hosts knew about it beforehand so couldve changed plans and reduced hygiene issues 😒

Don’t rely on them to provide bottled-when our village lost water in a heatwave we went 3 days before anyone showed up with any. I had a toddler, it was awful. All the local shops were out, I had to do a 40 mile round trip to get any.

Water company didn’t care a jot, but the worst bit was the lying-they kept saying water had been delivered but it never made it to all the houses. If I hadn’t had a car we’d have been at risk. All we got was a £50 bill credit.

All I can think about now is Netflix poop cruise. All those people pooping in those red bags 🫩

Yesterday was chaos at work coordinating those bottles... all 15k, hope Southern get it back on soon!

Can you hire a last minute porta loo? fill any baths, buckets etc with water, get another kettle for quickly boiling water for washing up.

That's really frustrating but I suspect you're right. Dh and I qualified last year but we moved before payments were made so had a new water provider and missed out on the payment as our account was closed. We couldn't be bothered with the hassle of arguing it.