What You Can Accomplish with Red Tape, A Wrench, & White String!

Our first week in our house brought us to realize a few things. 1) A wrench and a wad of white string (Optional) is the expanded version of the toolbox for a repairman in India. Batman would be jealous of what the repairman can fix here with such little gadgetry. 2) We'll be there tomorrow at 10:30 means you should expect someone to come sometime in the next three days (if you call to see where they are at) and 3) Just because something was delivered for installation doesn't mean the installer will figure out where you live. One installer didn't come because our phone number was wrong (It never occurred to him to come by the address on the paperwork to see if we were home).


When we rented our house we had two things we really wanted: power backup for the A/C and good hot water. So we pay an extra $500-600 a month for a house with a solar hot water tank and battery backup. The first few days we either took a cold shower or took an hour long shower because the water pressure was so low (it's really hard to rinse off one drop at a time). Little did we know that was all about to change.


We purchased some appliances for the house and when the items were delivered we expected someone to come by for installation the same day as the salesperson told us. However after two days of waiting around and being tired of being without filtered water I decided to install the water filter system I purchased for the house myself. After all an older system was already installed and it would be as easy as changing out the supply line to the new filter system. I looked at the ball valve on the supply line and easily turned it off by moving the lever a quarter turn. I double checked to make sure the water was not still flowing to the filter. And tripled checked just in case: Good to go! When I attempted to pull the supply line off of the ribbed fitting of the valve is when things really got interesting for us.


Just a simple tug at the plastic supply line and the whole metal 3/4" pipe broke off where the metal valve was attached. Water starting spewing everywhere. I tried to put the broken pipe back together but the water pressure was too much and it was spraying all over the kitchen. I yelled for Crystal and had her run to our neighbors house (Another Expat with Deloitte who has been here almost a year). Taking stock of the situation I realized how lucky I was. The pipe break was right over the kitchen sink so I could just funnel the water into the sink. Then I realized we didn't know where the water cutoff valve was and there's a 150 gallon tank on the top of our house that was going to spill into the kitchen after we got the valve turned off. As I tried to aim the gushing water into the sink Crystal and Terrence searched around the house and found the cutoff valve. That's when Terrence realized he should have brought a knife. One of our trees in the front yard was tied off to the supply valve shutoff wheel and the wheel couldn't turn off without getting the string loose. It is a good thing Terrance is a big guy (Think David Stockett or Chuck Pringle). He was able to rip the string in two with pure muscle and turn the valve off (Crystal didn't have a chance against the string). By this time we had sent Aubrey around the house to turn on the other faucets, but we still had to get to the roof to turn off the huge water tank.


Crystal took over funneling the water into the kitchen sink with a big bucket. That's when we discovered Hot Water! HOT, HOT Water!!. It's a good thing Crystal had the bucket and wasn't using her hands like I was to turn the water into the sink. Terrence and I ran up to the terrace on the top of our house. The water tank was on top of a 12 foot roof line and we only had a 6 foot ladder. Luckily there was a 2 foot overhang on top of the doorway; however the cement was cracked at the wall and when I put some of my weight on it the platform bent down several inches under the weight. This is where Terrance's size and strength came in handy again. He held the overhang up while I boosted up to the rooftop and turned off the valve to the water tank. That's when I saw it!! Perched atop the roof was a small water pump going into the 100 gallon solar hot water tank. Terrance later showed me where the switch to turn the pump on was inside the house and now we have hot showers everyday.


A few minutes later the neighborhood maintenance crew showed up and capped the pipe with just a wad of white string. The string was used to fill in the threads of the pipe so the cap would seal and not let water out. The next day they came with the plumber and he had string and a wrench and we installed the new pipe fitting, new valve and the new water filter. Safe drinking water is nice :-). Bottled water for everything was getting boring and expensive. We later found out that our garden hose is not screwed on to the hose bib. You guessed it. It is tied on with white string!


Sometimes in life a little "red tape" gives us a setback that opens doors to unlock the potential we didn't know we had. Truly you'll see this experience helped us turn lemons into: Well not lemonade, but something much better! Surveying our water logged kitchen we were not really prepared to try and cook dinner for the family on a Sunday evening without any running water. Luckily Terrence and Robin invited us over to their house for dinner. It was the family's first Indian meal: Lemon Rice. The meal was great and the support from our friends even better. Every time I take a hot shower I remember that Sunday evening and the miracles that good friendship brings. There is no better way to overcome your struggles than together with family, friends, and God helping out.