Spring is on the horizon so today we went to the house to check the water situation. We switched off the mains supply over a month ago, before the temperature plummeted to minus 20, and we left the taps open. Unfortunately, the tap in the bath was dripping, although we have no idea why. Fast forward a couple of weeks and we are faced with a nightmare situation. The bath is 3/4s filled with ice, with an immense icicle hanging from the tap. There is water on the bathroom floor, which suggests that there was a lot more water there at some point, which means a pipe must have burst somewhere.
After switching on the mains water, no water came through any of the taps, which means an underground pipe must be completely frozen and blocked. Several taps, including the shower, refuse to budge at all and are frozen open.
I have no idea how we will thaw all these and I dread what will happen when we do. The possibility of having cracked pipes buried in the concrete beneath the bathroom, kitchen and living room scares the hell out of me. This year we plan on doing lots of other major repairs which the house is in desperate need of, yet now the Zen tea cup has been filled with a surprise calamity. Everything else must now go on a back burner until we resolve what could be a horrifically costly situation. Just replacing all the taps will cost a packet.
Village life sometimes sucks real bad.
