Mud Bath

There was a tradie in the lift with me as I arrived home late morning. He left the lift at my floor and remarked that our hot water may off for a short time. "Mainline pipe leaking", he said. I thanked him for telling me. Shortly after he knocked at the door and asked if our hot water was off. No, I replied. Oh, I need to turn more valves off. Yes, he does. I remember that from when I replaced tap washers with ceramic discs.

Maybe half an hour later he again knocked at the door and asked if he could check the sink tap. I let him and he is obviously experienced at highrise homes where Asian people might live and took his boots off. He turned on the kitchen sink tap and asked me if the pressure was normal. I replied, I think so but it normally delivers clear water, not mud. Yes folk, the water was very brown and at times very dark brown. I could see heaps of sediment coming through. The plumber explained that the header tanks had been stirred up and it would soon clear. I told him that there is no aerator or restrictor at the bath. We will turn that on. I turned the bath taps on and brown water just kept flowing and flowing. At some point it was clear the water was so heavy with sediment that the plumber said, I will go down to the gym shower and run the water off there. Good, I thought. We are paying for this hot water.

I sluiced most of the sediment in the bath away with a couple of buckets of cold water but obviously not that well and R later had to clean his bath. When I arrived home that evening I asked R if the hot water was clear and he said yes, but it is cold. Oh, this late means it won't be fixed by the morning and I will have to just have a wash in the morning instead of a shower. R says I am such a disbeliever and will never take his word for anything and that is partly correct. Nevertheless I went to my bathroom, turned on the hot tap and lovely clean hot water flowed, much to our relief. Cinderella did have a lovely hot and clean shower next morning.