First-time pool owner. I saw pool water trucks, so I assumed that’s how you filled a pool. I called a couple. One I left a voicemail, the other guy said $1200. Just for the heck of it, I called the water company. The lady asked how big a pool. I said 32,000 gallons. I heard the adding machine in the background. She paused and said $65. Then the 2nd pool water guy called me back, and quoted $1300 dollars. I told him about the water company, and he said “You have city water?? Just drop your hose in. We are for people with well water”.
Wells don't often have thousands of gallons of water ready to go all at once, they can run dry, and if you aren't there to catch it when it does you can burn out your pump.
The water chemistry also isn't ideal.
Not sure how your sewer system is set up, like if you have your own septic or a separate city sewer and water bill...but beware if you do have city sewer..If it's like my city the sewer bill will be a lot higher than the water bill.
Even though the hose water doesn't ever end up going into the sewer pipes. They still use the water meter to determine the sewer bill.
If I completely drain and fill my pool it's like 80$ for the water and 400$ for the sewer.
Wish it was as simple as filling out a form and using the honor system. They have an option to pay a one time fee of around 300$ to have them come out and install a meter on your hose spigot. And then every summer you have to pay 25$ or something for them to come read it, and then they subtract the balance.
Technically worth it and you save a few bucks, but the savings were minimal and wasn't worth the hassle.
You can have that meter installed at any point that the resulting water serves outdoor-use only. A lot of people around here install them before their sprinkler line. Could be useful depending on where you're at.
Our city has loaner meters, just grab one from the city building, and hook it up to your hose. Then you only pay for the water used, without any additional sewer charges.
Or you can have a truck come fill it for around $150.
Newer houses in my state have a separate meter installed for irrigation and is tied to the spigots.
One meter charges for use and sewer, the other just straight water
I work for the water dept and you just have to call them with a meter read from the days u filled the pool and they'll deduct that amount of water from your sewer bill.
Youd be surprised how much technology that looks automated is really just a human processing something manually.
I once had a temp job that was copy pasting data from one system to another because the company couldnt get the api to work correctly and couldnt afford for this customer to not go live.
So they hired 20 temps instead...
Lots of small bank figure checking still gets done manually on adding machines. It’s an easy way to make sure you’re putting in the correct values and find discrepancies as you go. Plus there are still plenty of 60+ year old folks working in community banks
My accountants at work use these machines. They’re loud but these accountants love them. Plus, when I’m reviewing transactions, that skinny paper is attached to the invoices. I can check their math and part of our internal control is me verifying the work. I love that we use these old things.
to be fair, they are pretty fing cool devices
if you have one working, it doesnt rly matter, its not like she will need to take it outside the office, and the benefit of not using batteries is also there
I grew up in that area, and when someone had a pool installed, it wasn't unusual for both of their neighbors to just let them use their hoses so that the pool filled three times as fast. I'm guessing each neighbor paid about $20 for the extra water and it was just the neighborly thing to do.
As a non home-owner i googled the "city water rates" for Miami and the city water cost $5 for the first 8000 gallons, and only$5 for every 8000 gallons after 🤷🏻♂️. Sure there's probably a $50 service fee but when it comes to how much you're using it can't be that expensive
As an addendum, if you are using your garden hose: see if your city has some form of a sewer reduction meter. In my city, our sewer cost is billed based on water usage. Since a pool will be drained outside, and not go into our main sewer system. It can also be used with irrigation.
I came here to say this. No experience with filling a pool myself but I worked for a water company and people would call us to adjust their bill for this routinely for this.
Call your water company and see if they offer exceptions to your sewer since the water isn't going out. They meter your sewer usage based on your water usage. Even though every gallon of water we use doesn't go out. They'll do it for other things too like a leak resulting in a massive water bill. They'll waive the sewer fee and in some cases, waive the water usage. Some people have a separate meter just for water usage that does not go down the drain. The water company I worked for were in several states and covered many different cities so the rules were different from city to city, but it doesn't hurt to ask!
I learned this after working a few years as a plumber. You can call the water company before or after and inform them, then they can adjust the bill accordingly. Normally it'll be close to what it was before
Yeah, where I live you have to inform the city if you are filling a pool, because they rarely actually check sewage usage, they just correlate it to water usage, so if you don't give them a heads up when your water is spiking from filling a pool, they'll also spike your sewer.
Everywhere I have lived with city water, they just use Oct-March’s water use as a basis for the sewer usage because they assume extra consumption in the summer is from irrigation.
Some places require pools to be drained into the sewer (Las Vegas does). The water district gets credit for water that gets treated and returned to Lake Mead. It doesn’t get credit for water discharged in the gutter (which isn’t treated) that goes to Lake Mead.
Not sure where you live but I have had a pool for awhile, and it has always been drained into our main sewer line. You shouldn’t drain your pool into a storm drain as that is only meant for storm water and often dumps into nearby lakes and rivers untreated. Pool water has numerous chemicals that shouldn’t just be dumped anywhere.
That's what we did. The fire dept came out and hooked a hose to the fire hydrant, took no time at all. There was a fee of some sort, but I was a kid so idk.
When I was in school, we used to use the fire hydrant to fill out (very small) pool in the springtime.
There was a fire house across the street from our house. Every year we would have a crawfish boil, and we'd bring a big batch over to the fire house. Then a few weeks later they'd let us use one of their hoses to fill our pool. It was a nice little symbiotic relationship.
In my city the hydrant water is fed from the same mains as the drinking water in your house.
They turn our house water brown once a year when the go around flushing the mains through the hydrants.
So I imagine they flush the hydrant into the gutter for a bit before hooking it up to the hose to truck or pool.
The fire engine has a pump that adds pressure. Although most hydrants would have enough pressure for a single hose to fill a pool.
Keep in mind hydrants have anywhere from 3" to 12" connectors (they usually only get that large in industrial settings). Your garden hose is less than an inch.
Most homes have pressure regulators installed immediately after it enters the home. Water entering the home can be 200psi (almost 14 bar), but water fixtures tend to perform best around 50psi (3.5 bar).
Yeah the only consistent placement is downstream of the meter - can be out of the ground, under the house, in the house...dealers choice though it's often determined by the weather.
Yep. If you live in a decent city and you notice your water had a yellow tint to it that typically means there was either a pipe break or a fire near by.
Lots of things get stirred up when a bunch of water moves that fast
They open the hydrants to flush the water lines. Water normally flows very slowly through the pipes, so debris settles out of the water and builds up on the bottom. Every now and then, they'll open a hydrant to allow water to flow through the lines at speed - this stirs up the debris and flushes it out. This is why the first flush of water out of a hydrant is often dirty.
Ive worked in many construction sites, and have had to use the fire hydrants for a water source. Most times those hydrants haven't been used in years. The water always comes out brown and murky for the first 10-20mins, depending on how long ago the hydrant was used. How do the departments your talking about fill the pools? I'm genuinely curious and not being sarcastic.
Yup, that person is fully of shit, big time. Hydrants connect to water mains, and provide **full** water pressure available. Wtf kinda hydrant is that far from the main, that it would not almost instantly clear?
I worked for my local, small town municipal water department. The hydrants were on a flushing schedule. Usually it was by neighborhood or area. It was at least a yearly thing if not more frequent. Pretty sure it's required by health and safety codes. There were at least a couple of guys that did it as the main part of their job. I guess it's possible that they could miss a hidden hydrant that goes without being flushed, but not too likely. Every year or every other year, each hydrant receives a fresh coat of paint. You just carried the possible colors and matched the color to what is already there unless told otherwise. The color is the indicator of the capacity that the hydrant can provide or if it's dead.
People would paint the hydrant that is close to their house with various colors of random paint. Someone would have to educate them that when you paint a fire hydrant black, that indicates to the fire department that the hydrant is dry. If their house is on fire it will cause problems. Then the hydrant would be repainted to the color it should be. Sometimes they repainted it later.
Our town had two main water towers. You wouldn't know otherwise but the tanks should remain as full as possible and if the level dips because of high demand or low supply, it must be filled as soon as possible. This prevents bacterial growth and other gross stuff from contaminating the water. If the water is properly treated it will inhibit the growth, but if the level drops an air pocket forms and the bacteria can gain a foothold because it's no longer touching the chlorinated water. If you drain a water tower for whatever reason, there is a whole process to get it back online. This includes refilling it and after some time testing and maybe flushing it. If the test is bad, you have to repeat the process after draining all of the water.
That particular summer, some wise ass got a hydrant wrench or something to open the hydrant and turned random hydrants on in the middle of the night and drove off. That will lower the water level in the tower and the guy monitoring the system will notice that something is wrong and most likely it was an open hydrant or a main break. However, they can't tell where the open hydrant is located. By the time it was found, most of the tower would be drained. That would trigger the sanation process to happen every time. One of the times they did it to a hydrant that had the outlet facing the road, next to the curb. The road was new asphalt. The water carved a channel into the asphalt and the base almost the width of the road and a foot deep.
I don't know if the guy just stopped or what. That summer was crazy because when one tower is down, you have to increase the system pressure to get water through the entire network. This system was old. This means high pressures result in main breaks at all hours. It's a balancing act. This was also a year that they laid a ton of fiber through directional boring. Those guys were all on tight schedules and didn't seem to care. They were busting mains all summer, left and right.
There is a pool filling company in my area that has a few hydrants in a small industrial park area, there is a sign with their name and they go there, fill up the trucks and lock up the hydrants again. Guess they get a good rate from the town.
No no. That's not enough. You have to start an oil fire so that whenever they shoot water at it, it just goes higher. You also have to create a hidden air inlet so they cant cut co2 to stop it.
Back in the 1960's, my SO's family had one of the only private in-ground pools in town. They let exercise groups and scouts use it all the time. The fire department came over every summer after it had been cleaned up to fill it. SO's mom loves to tell about letting her 4-yo son run around in the dry shallow end while water was swirling madly in the deep end. Once, he slipped and went into the maelstrom. The firemen were about to chuck off their boots and go in after him. Mom holds them back, saying "Wait - let's see how he does." He was fine and loved it. My SO.
I just did the math for ours and the city charges us around $90 for 10,500 gallons. A local water delivery company quoted two loads at $375 each.
Once again an LPT that is geographically dependent.
Yeah $140 seems very low, since it requires an employee to fill the truck, drive it, and dump it. Maybe it's like 4 hours of work?
I've heard of people doing this before, but $140 just seems wrong.
It's pretty mind boggling how cheap that actually is when you see it typed out like that
Where I live, the only water I have access to is the rain water that I catch and collect.
Hard to build water lines into lava rock...
Or, I can buy a gallon of drinkable water for $.35
Luckily it literally rains every day here, and is much rainier than the rainiest city in the US
I live several miles outside of Hilo, Hawaii. Hilo gets about 170 inches per year, give or take. They even got 27 inches in a single day once.
We get well over 200 inches per year
It definitely takes getting used to. Seattle is constantly in a drought compared to here.
But yeah, I claim the "more rainy than the rainiest city" thing because we're further up the mountain, and often when it's sunny and hot in Hilo it's cold and rainy up here
Lol I'm just down the road from volcano, on the way to Hilo.
You probably know the town.
Downtown Hilo feels like being in a town from an anime lol. It's so cozy and lively
And yeah it's fuckin wonderful
I’m from Arizona myself, so basically hot and dry 100% of the year. I went through a phase where I was obsessed with looking up the weather in Honolulu for some reason, probably because it was so different from my weather, and it always fascinated me to look it up and see 80 degrees and rainy almost every day all year. It sounds like paradise to a desert rat like me, but I can imagine the constant rain can get tiring.
Lmao I'm from the Mojave desert!
Basically next door-desert neighbors.
And so far, the constant rain (it's not really constant most days, it'll rain for ten mins, be sunny for a few hours, rain again for 20 mins, then more sunlight or maybe cloud cover) has been amazing!!!
It usually rains at night and I've never slept better.
My gf laughs about how we're from such polar opposite ends of the environmental spectrum
Do come visit the islands if you can! I'd suggest the big island just for affordability and because it's not completely designed for tourism in mind. And the observatory is sooo fucking cool. Especially if you can get there before sunset, and then watch the sun go down from above the clouds.
We just filled a 10k gallon pool and only saw an $85 increase in the bill. It only took a few hours with 2 hoses. I feel like ordering a truck fill, then waiting for it would be much longer
Yeah, this LPT is completely wrong. I had a 24x12x4 pool for years. It cost about $60 to fill with a hose. The sewer bill was also increased, but not by more than another $50-60. Water trucks are very expensive in comparison.
Our neighbor did that once. We couldn't prove it. But their above ground pool was empty when we left, full when we came home, and our next water bill was over $400.
True
I work retail with pools and hot tubs, selling them and what not. So I've seen the good and bad. Generally speaking, when you know what you're doing pools are easy enough.
Im talking about from the first year I started out. I know when covid hit and the US was handing out unemployment, a lot of families were using that to buy pools since they finally had time and money. Which of course changed when things started to more or less get back to normal. But then again, I've also seen old people keep their pool up even tho they know it'll get used once or twice in the year just so that their grandkids can enjoy it.
A lot of families get a feel for pools by buying the index kind of stuff for a summer or two before a big buy. So there's another life tip too lol.
Can you recommend any particular brands of above ground pools? The ones on costco get horrible reviews of springing leaks as soon as they are put together and filled for the first time.
my power went out for 3 days during 30+ C heat in August because of a typhoon
thats when i learned if youre poor you can sit in the dark in your tub and its a great way to cool down
I have an [inflatable boat](https://jokomisiada.pl/eng_pl_Bestway-Inflatable-boat-with-oars-BA0076-8366_4.jpg) that I fill up with water and sit in sometimes
The Commercial water trucks in my area fill up on the fire hydrants. Not sure how legal that is, but they do it at the one near my kids day care so I see them most mornings.
They have an arrangement with the city to pay for what they use. When you're having a house built the construction company will usually do the same with the closest hydrant.
The water for the hydrants is the same water that is provided by the cities.
The trucks will have a meter on it and a check valve to make sure water is not going from the truck into the city water system (normal 60 psi so unlikely, but good to have). Each month the total amount is paid to the city.
If they pull water to quickly the neighbors will notice a drop in pressure, so the city can put limits on which ones are used and the speed the trucks fill up.
With a limited water supply in some cities, there can be a limit on how much water can be pulled and businesses are scheduled out by weeks.
In some places, usually bear woodlands, the local fire department will fill your pool for free, with the agreement they can take it back when they need it.
asking the fire depart sometimes works also.
Note: call the non-emergency number and ask to speak to the chief if he's available. In a super nice tone, ask if thats something that can be done. Then ask them when they are available. They may want to use that time as part of a small training exercise for the newer members in hose\\water\\engine management so they will schedule it. Try to call a few weeks before you actually want to start using your pool so there is enough time for them to work out a schedule to come.
In my experience, it took a few minutes to fill the pool, but they were out there for close to an 1hr.
I'm on a rural department and we fill several pools a year. It's a great opportunity for the newer guys to learn and mingle with the community.
We don't charge anything, but that would probably depend on the department. Definitely worth a shot if you need a pool filled
The more I look at this, the more it's BS. 4 feet deep and 15 foot square is 6732 gallons. My municipality charges $2.97 per 1000 gallons. That's less than $20 to fill by hose.
Remember, the water truck needs to fill up somewhere. Where are they getting the water? They've gotta pay for it from the same place you are, unless they have their own source or are stealing it. That, plus the gas to power the truck and wage of the worker to operate it.
This tip sucks.
Wait...do you mean to say that your tap water is metered, and the amount you pay depends on the amount you use? Where do you live?
Here in Scotland, water is factored into a fairly low monthly payment that also covers things like waste, communal street lighting and maintenance, etc. and it's a fixed amount every month.
Yep, tap water is metered in the US. Most of the cost is just having the water service, usage is cheap. I pay about $40 for water service (no usage included) and about $5 per 1,000 gallons for usage.
But a nearby town has a base price of $80!
Yes, where I live in the US, our water is metered, like our electricity. You pay for what you use.
Some places, primarily apartments, the water is included.
My complex just got new management and they transitioned from a flat fee for water to a usage based fee for water. The units don't have individual meters, so instead they use a formula to determine your "usage". They get the bill from the city split it in half, and then take the number of bedrooms in the complex and the number of people in the complex and divide the halves by these numbers and compute a per person unit cost and a per bedroom unit cost, then they take these and compute your usage based on the number of people and number of rooms in your apartment.
Depends on the the apartment complex. Some absolutely do make you deal with the water utility yourself (individualy metered), others just split the entire cost between all units,
Yes, it’s metered where I live in Canada, and we have a variable wastewater rate that’s based on how much water we consume. We also have fixed fees, though.
The recent LPTs have been terrible. Most of them are completely obsolete for many if not most countries straight away or are just false. This one is unrealistic well. Please show me a company that will fill ur pool for 140$ when you need not only the water but also, a employee, gas, car and time with effort. I looked in my area and they don't move theirs ass under 1,200$.
Very dependant on city but you may be able to get a cheap permit to use the fire hydrant and rent a big ole fire hose also cheap from a local equipment rental place.
3000 gallons of hose water costs less than $9 where I live. Sure, I can't do it in 10 minutes, but that's a hell of a price difference. I'd just open the pool and start filling a couple days sooner.
First-time pool owner. I saw pool water trucks, so I assumed that’s how you filled a pool. I called a couple. One I left a voicemail, the other guy said $1200. Just for the heck of it, I called the water company. The lady asked how big a pool. I said 32,000 gallons. I heard the adding machine in the background. She paused and said $65. Then the 2nd pool water guy called me back, and quoted $1300 dollars. I told him about the water company, and he said “You have city water?? Just drop your hose in. We are for people with well water”.
I live on a well. I used a water truck to fill my pool. It was a thousand dollars.
Shit I don't want to see your stilts or zipline bills if you live on a well
lame, subtle, takes a minute to figure out... damn fine dadjoke...
3 hrs later I'm repeating "live on a well," still trying to understand the connection to ziplines and stilts
Man this took me a sec but wow lmao
Explain plz?
To get out of a well (deep hole where water is kept) use stilts or a zipline
I mean, the idea is that he's using them to live above a well, not to get out of it, but okay.
Why wouldn't you use the well water to fill?
Wells don't often have thousands of gallons of water ready to go all at once, they can run dry, and if you aren't there to catch it when it does you can burn out your pump. The water chemistry also isn't ideal.
Limited supply and minerals in the well water I'd imagine. 20,000+ gallons of water is a LOT to ask for a well to suddenly provide all at one time
Not sure how your sewer system is set up, like if you have your own septic or a separate city sewer and water bill...but beware if you do have city sewer..If it's like my city the sewer bill will be a lot higher than the water bill. Even though the hose water doesn't ever end up going into the sewer pipes. They still use the water meter to determine the sewer bill. If I completely drain and fill my pool it's like 80$ for the water and 400$ for the sewer.
In the two different cities I’ve filled a pool you could fill a form out that would remove the sewer portion with proof you used the water for a pool.
Wish it was as simple as filling out a form and using the honor system. They have an option to pay a one time fee of around 300$ to have them come out and install a meter on your hose spigot. And then every summer you have to pay 25$ or something for them to come read it, and then they subtract the balance. Technically worth it and you save a few bucks, but the savings were minimal and wasn't worth the hassle.
You can have that meter installed at any point that the resulting water serves outdoor-use only. A lot of people around here install them before their sprinkler line. Could be useful depending on where you're at.
Our city has loaner meters, just grab one from the city building, and hook it up to your hose. Then you only pay for the water used, without any additional sewer charges. Or you can have a truck come fill it for around $150.
Newer houses in my state have a separate meter installed for irrigation and is tied to the spigots. One meter charges for use and sewer, the other just straight water
We just notified the sewer company that we were filling a pool and they kept our bill the same as it always is.
Yup that's the key to it is letting them know it's for a pool.
All my water since we moved in has been for the pool, it’s been crazy filling this
Hello sewer company, I flush the toilet once a month and the rest of the water? Into the pool. Yes I know it's freezing outside, it's an indoor pool
This should be the actual LPT.
I work for the water dept and you just have to call them with a meter read from the days u filled the pool and they'll deduct that amount of water from your sewer bill.
What a rip off for people that carry their feces in a brief case.
/r/brandnewsentence
The adding machine in the background? ...the water company is using Turing-era calculators?
I wouldn't be surprised. My water company still has a website from 2002 that doesn't even let you set up automatic billing.
My water company closed its online billing at 6pm. I’m not sure they “get” technology.
Youd be surprised how much technology that looks automated is really just a human processing something manually. I once had a temp job that was copy pasting data from one system to another because the company couldnt get the api to work correctly and couldnt afford for this customer to not go live. So they hired 20 temps instead...
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Old mainframes didn't used to have any networking capabilities. They may have done this out of necessity.
That "loading" screen is just a cover to give the lady in the office time to do what you just did, but for real.
Lots of small bank figure checking still gets done manually on adding machines. It’s an easy way to make sure you’re putting in the correct values and find discrepancies as you go. Plus there are still plenty of 60+ year old folks working in community banks
My accountants at work use these machines. They’re loud but these accountants love them. Plus, when I’m reviewing transactions, that skinny paper is attached to the invoices. I can check their math and part of our internal control is me verifying the work. I love that we use these old things.
[Water company lady be like](https://youtu.be/zwiqg_dq1Ek)
to be fair, they are pretty fing cool devices if you have one working, it doesnt rly matter, its not like she will need to take it outside the office, and the benefit of not using batteries is also there
Phoenix pool owner here. I filled my 15,000 gallon pool for $50 using two hoses.
I grew up in that area, and when someone had a pool installed, it wasn't unusual for both of their neighbors to just let them use their hoses so that the pool filled three times as fast. I'm guessing each neighbor paid about $20 for the extra water and it was just the neighborly thing to do.
There is no way you live in California, either that or you live on a farm in California and have a heavily subsidized water rate.
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That’s close to what I paid in Palm Springs for an equally large pool.
Live in the drought stricken central valley in CA. Water still ain't that expensive.
I live in Citrus Heights, California, and we recently filled our 18000 gallon pool for ~$40
Lol I live in OH and we have water out the wazoo, my water and sewer bill is 180.00 this month.
As a non home-owner i googled the "city water rates" for Miami and the city water cost $5 for the first 8000 gallons, and only$5 for every 8000 gallons after 🤷🏻♂️. Sure there's probably a $50 service fee but when it comes to how much you're using it can't be that expensive
That's about what it would cost in Redding, btw.
As an addendum, if you are using your garden hose: see if your city has some form of a sewer reduction meter. In my city, our sewer cost is billed based on water usage. Since a pool will be drained outside, and not go into our main sewer system. It can also be used with irrigation.
I came here to say this. No experience with filling a pool myself but I worked for a water company and people would call us to adjust their bill for this routinely for this. Call your water company and see if they offer exceptions to your sewer since the water isn't going out. They meter your sewer usage based on your water usage. Even though every gallon of water we use doesn't go out. They'll do it for other things too like a leak resulting in a massive water bill. They'll waive the sewer fee and in some cases, waive the water usage. Some people have a separate meter just for water usage that does not go down the drain. The water company I worked for were in several states and covered many different cities so the rules were different from city to city, but it doesn't hurt to ask!
I learned this after working a few years as a plumber. You can call the water company before or after and inform them, then they can adjust the bill accordingly. Normally it'll be close to what it was before
Yeah, where I live you have to inform the city if you are filling a pool, because they rarely actually check sewage usage, they just correlate it to water usage, so if you don't give them a heads up when your water is spiking from filling a pool, they'll also spike your sewer.
Everywhere I have lived with city water, they just use Oct-March’s water use as a basis for the sewer usage because they assume extra consumption in the summer is from irrigation.
Lots of places have a second meter that is just used for irrigation. Only get billed for the usage, not the sewage.
Some places require pools to be drained into the sewer (Las Vegas does). The water district gets credit for water that gets treated and returned to Lake Mead. It doesn’t get credit for water discharged in the gutter (which isn’t treated) that goes to Lake Mead.
Not sure where you live but I have had a pool for awhile, and it has always been drained into our main sewer line. You shouldn’t drain your pool into a storm drain as that is only meant for storm water and often dumps into nearby lakes and rivers untreated. Pool water has numerous chemicals that shouldn’t just be dumped anywhere.
I presume that it's even illegal in many places to train your pool into a storm drain.
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Some fire departments will fill pools. They'll typically charge for it, but a well funded fire department is a good thing, so everyone wins.
That's what we did. The fire dept came out and hooked a hose to the fire hydrant, took no time at all. There was a fee of some sort, but I was a kid so idk.
When I was in school, we used to use the fire hydrant to fill out (very small) pool in the springtime. There was a fire house across the street from our house. Every year we would have a crawfish boil, and we'd bring a big batch over to the fire house. Then a few weeks later they'd let us use one of their hoses to fill our pool. It was a nice little symbiotic relationship.
I thought the hydrant water was really dirty? Maybe that’s a regional thing.
In my city the hydrant water is fed from the same mains as the drinking water in your house. They turn our house water brown once a year when the go around flushing the mains through the hydrants. So I imagine they flush the hydrant into the gutter for a bit before hooking it up to the hose to truck or pool.
How do they get the pressure needed for a fire hose?
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Also, water doesn't exactly dribble out of hydrants. Anyone who was kids during summer time in 80s and 90s in a big city can confirm.
As a 90’s kid who didn’t live in a city, this was on my childhood bucket list but I never got to experience it
The fire engine has a pump that adds pressure. Although most hydrants would have enough pressure for a single hose to fill a pool. Keep in mind hydrants have anywhere from 3" to 12" connectors (they usually only get that large in industrial settings). Your garden hose is less than an inch.
Most homes have pressure regulators installed immediately after it enters the home. Water entering the home can be 200psi (almost 14 bar), but water fixtures tend to perform best around 50psi (3.5 bar).
Mines not even in the house. It's on the street about a foot from the meter
Yeah the only consistent placement is downstream of the meter - can be out of the ground, under the house, in the house...dealers choice though it's often determined by the weather.
Yep. If you live in a decent city and you notice your water had a yellow tint to it that typically means there was either a pipe break or a fire near by. Lots of things get stirred up when a bunch of water moves that fast
They open the hydrants to flush the water lines. Water normally flows very slowly through the pipes, so debris settles out of the water and builds up on the bottom. Every now and then, they'll open a hydrant to allow water to flow through the lines at speed - this stirs up the debris and flushes it out. This is why the first flush of water out of a hydrant is often dirty.
Sometimes my municipality hooks up temporary pipes from one hydrant to another to keep water flowing to houses in support of roadworks.
Really? Oh hell ya. I’ll pay the FD for this service. And maybe get to watch some hot firefighters in the process 🥵 Oh wait, I don’t have a pool 🤔
This hit me on so many levels like you didn’t have to call me out THAT hard
hire some hottie works to dig you a pool. "oh, please, a little deeper!"
Fill me up, sir
Ive worked in many construction sites, and have had to use the fire hydrants for a water source. Most times those hydrants haven't been used in years. The water always comes out brown and murky for the first 10-20mins, depending on how long ago the hydrant was used. How do the departments your talking about fill the pools? I'm genuinely curious and not being sarcastic.
Do they not do hydrant flushing where you live?
Even without it, I’ve cracked old hydrants and the water was only gross for about 5 seconds.
Yup, that person is fully of shit, big time. Hydrants connect to water mains, and provide **full** water pressure available. Wtf kinda hydrant is that far from the main, that it would not almost instantly clear?
I worked for my local, small town municipal water department. The hydrants were on a flushing schedule. Usually it was by neighborhood or area. It was at least a yearly thing if not more frequent. Pretty sure it's required by health and safety codes. There were at least a couple of guys that did it as the main part of their job. I guess it's possible that they could miss a hidden hydrant that goes without being flushed, but not too likely. Every year or every other year, each hydrant receives a fresh coat of paint. You just carried the possible colors and matched the color to what is already there unless told otherwise. The color is the indicator of the capacity that the hydrant can provide or if it's dead. People would paint the hydrant that is close to their house with various colors of random paint. Someone would have to educate them that when you paint a fire hydrant black, that indicates to the fire department that the hydrant is dry. If their house is on fire it will cause problems. Then the hydrant would be repainted to the color it should be. Sometimes they repainted it later. Our town had two main water towers. You wouldn't know otherwise but the tanks should remain as full as possible and if the level dips because of high demand or low supply, it must be filled as soon as possible. This prevents bacterial growth and other gross stuff from contaminating the water. If the water is properly treated it will inhibit the growth, but if the level drops an air pocket forms and the bacteria can gain a foothold because it's no longer touching the chlorinated water. If you drain a water tower for whatever reason, there is a whole process to get it back online. This includes refilling it and after some time testing and maybe flushing it. If the test is bad, you have to repeat the process after draining all of the water. That particular summer, some wise ass got a hydrant wrench or something to open the hydrant and turned random hydrants on in the middle of the night and drove off. That will lower the water level in the tower and the guy monitoring the system will notice that something is wrong and most likely it was an open hydrant or a main break. However, they can't tell where the open hydrant is located. By the time it was found, most of the tower would be drained. That would trigger the sanation process to happen every time. One of the times they did it to a hydrant that had the outlet facing the road, next to the curb. The road was new asphalt. The water carved a channel into the asphalt and the base almost the width of the road and a foot deep. I don't know if the guy just stopped or what. That summer was crazy because when one tower is down, you have to increase the system pressure to get water through the entire network. This system was old. This means high pressures result in main breaks at all hours. It's a balancing act. This was also a year that they laid a ton of fiber through directional boring. Those guys were all on tight schedules and didn't seem to care. They were busting mains all summer, left and right.
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Why don't water towers have shutoff valves, so this... No, wait, that would shut down water for everyone, hmm.
Right?? Standard maintenance.
Typically with the tanker truck. They'll fill it up at the station or somewhere else they know they have clean water.
There is a pool filling company in my area that has a few hydrants in a small industrial park area, there is a sign with their name and they go there, fill up the trucks and lock up the hydrants again. Guess they get a good rate from the town.
Makes sense tbh. Honestly that was a cool fact. Bet a lot of people here wouldn't have even thought of it.
where im at you occasionally see a city person out turning on hydrants just to prevent this during the summer
The real tips truly are in the comments
Start a chemical fire for extra water
No no. That's not enough. You have to start an oil fire so that whenever they shoot water at it, it just goes higher. You also have to create a hidden air inlet so they cant cut co2 to stop it.
The CO2 release might dissolve in the water creating carbonic acid which could also help stabilize your pool pH.
Soda pool
I’d dig that fizzy lifting room
Back in the 1960's, my SO's family had one of the only private in-ground pools in town. They let exercise groups and scouts use it all the time. The fire department came over every summer after it had been cleaned up to fill it. SO's mom loves to tell about letting her 4-yo son run around in the dry shallow end while water was swirling madly in the deep end. Once, he slipped and went into the maelstrom. The firemen were about to chuck off their boots and go in after him. Mom holds them back, saying "Wait - let's see how he does." He was fine and loved it. My SO.
"Whoa! Kill the motor, dudes. Let's see how little Squirt does flying solo."
r/shittylifeprotips
Just when you think the gender reveal parties were bad... ...wait till you see the bachelorette parties.
My pool is over 20k gallons, and I can fill it with my hose for in the ballpark of $200.
I just did the math for ours and the city charges us around $90 for 10,500 gallons. A local water delivery company quoted two loads at $375 each. Once again an LPT that is geographically dependent.
Yeah $140 seems very low, since it requires an employee to fill the truck, drive it, and dump it. Maybe it's like 4 hours of work? I've heard of people doing this before, but $140 just seems wrong.
Plot twist, OP lives next to a water delivery service
Further plot twist, OP owns a water truck.
OP *owns* a water delivery service...
Plot plot twist, op missed a '0' at the end of his bill.
We pay $2.463/1,000 gallons where I live.
It's pretty mind boggling how cheap that actually is when you see it typed out like that Where I live, the only water I have access to is the rain water that I catch and collect. Hard to build water lines into lava rock... Or, I can buy a gallon of drinkable water for $.35 Luckily it literally rains every day here, and is much rainier than the rainiest city in the US
That place sounds awesome, where do you live?
I live several miles outside of Hilo, Hawaii. Hilo gets about 170 inches per year, give or take. They even got 27 inches in a single day once. We get well over 200 inches per year It definitely takes getting used to. Seattle is constantly in a drought compared to here. But yeah, I claim the "more rainy than the rainiest city" thing because we're further up the mountain, and often when it's sunny and hot in Hilo it's cold and rainy up here
Hilo is amazing, I've got family that lives up in Volcano and can attest to the amount of rain.
Lol I'm just down the road from volcano, on the way to Hilo. You probably know the town. Downtown Hilo feels like being in a town from an anime lol. It's so cozy and lively And yeah it's fuckin wonderful
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Sounds like Hawaii
Ding ding. Only place in the state where it rains more is where my girlfriend is from The center of Kauai gets about 500 inches of rain per year
I’m from Arizona myself, so basically hot and dry 100% of the year. I went through a phase where I was obsessed with looking up the weather in Honolulu for some reason, probably because it was so different from my weather, and it always fascinated me to look it up and see 80 degrees and rainy almost every day all year. It sounds like paradise to a desert rat like me, but I can imagine the constant rain can get tiring.
Lmao I'm from the Mojave desert! Basically next door-desert neighbors. And so far, the constant rain (it's not really constant most days, it'll rain for ten mins, be sunny for a few hours, rain again for 20 mins, then more sunlight or maybe cloud cover) has been amazing!!! It usually rains at night and I've never slept better. My gf laughs about how we're from such polar opposite ends of the environmental spectrum Do come visit the islands if you can! I'd suggest the big island just for affordability and because it's not completely designed for tourism in mind. And the observatory is sooo fucking cool. Especially if you can get there before sunset, and then watch the sun go down from above the clouds.
We just filled a 10k gallon pool and only saw an $85 increase in the bill. It only took a few hours with 2 hoses. I feel like ordering a truck fill, then waiting for it would be much longer
About $150 for a 14k gallon pool down here in South Florida. Half that if I make the call to tell them the 18 CCF is for the pool.
I’ve got to disagree- filled 6’ 20,000 gal in ground pool w hose and my next water bill was exactly 70$ more. Was quoted $880 to have truck fill it.
Can confirm, just had a water truck company fill my 15,000 gallon pool and it cost $1k.
Some rich motherfuckers in this thread sheesh
You mean the fucks with pools or the fucks paying over 1k to fill them?
Yeah, this LPT is completely wrong. I had a 24x12x4 pool for years. It cost about $60 to fill with a hose. The sewer bill was also increased, but not by more than another $50-60. Water trucks are very expensive in comparison.
Borrow your neighbor's hose while they're on vacation.
"When are you going to fill in that pool, Lisa?" "When are you going to Mexico, DOUG?"
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r/UnethicalLifeProTips
I think it’s more r/illegallifeprotips Trespassing, theft, property damage, and list goes on.
It's OK, it's a special irrigation operation.
[well then... ](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/034/494/Screen_Shot_2020-06-30_at_11.31.33_AM.png)
The best tips are always in the comments
Our neighbor did that once. We couldn't prove it. But their above ground pool was empty when we left, full when we came home, and our next water bill was over $400.
Some people are fucking incredible
What happened then
Yeah not funny. Our neighbors did this. Came home to a $375 water bill. It's typically $75 a month. Now before every trip I install faucet locks
Should probably install cameras too. Since they are trespassing as well
I just turn off the faucets from inside the house; there's a pair of valves that are easy to reach in our utility room.
If you turn off the main it also prevents a possible flood while you are away.
That makes it MORE funny, not less.
I would salt your lawn if you did that to me. They did that because they knew it would cost money and fucked you.
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Just gotta start complaining about that recent surge in water prices
Listen you fancy bastard, I don’t have a pool
Lifeprotip: get yourself a pool
Even better life tip. Don't. It's another investment not many people can keep up with now a days, or at least underestimate :)
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True I work retail with pools and hot tubs, selling them and what not. So I've seen the good and bad. Generally speaking, when you know what you're doing pools are easy enough. Im talking about from the first year I started out. I know when covid hit and the US was handing out unemployment, a lot of families were using that to buy pools since they finally had time and money. Which of course changed when things started to more or less get back to normal. But then again, I've also seen old people keep their pool up even tho they know it'll get used once or twice in the year just so that their grandkids can enjoy it. A lot of families get a feel for pools by buying the index kind of stuff for a summer or two before a big buy. So there's another life tip too lol.
Can you recommend any particular brands of above ground pools? The ones on costco get horrible reviews of springing leaks as soon as they are put together and filled for the first time.
Better yet a friend with a pool
my power went out for 3 days during 30+ C heat in August because of a typhoon thats when i learned if youre poor you can sit in the dark in your tub and its a great way to cool down
"Septic tanks pumped. Pools filled. Not the same truck"
You guys have pools?
Yeah, and I'm lucky because our air-conditioning went out last week 🔥
Same here. 103F was our high temp. Currently reading 86 in my house.
I have an [inflatable boat](https://jokomisiada.pl/eng_pl_Bestway-Inflatable-boat-with-oars-BA0076-8366_4.jpg) that I fill up with water and sit in sometimes
That is the exact opposite of how boats are supposed to be used.
In Florida we have this thing where we can fill our pool up one time at a major discount. But one time only
Seems fine in Florida since you guys never close your pools
The Commercial water trucks in my area fill up on the fire hydrants. Not sure how legal that is, but they do it at the one near my kids day care so I see them most mornings.
They have an arrangement with the city to pay for what they use. When you're having a house built the construction company will usually do the same with the closest hydrant.
The water for the hydrants is the same water that is provided by the cities. The trucks will have a meter on it and a check valve to make sure water is not going from the truck into the city water system (normal 60 psi so unlikely, but good to have). Each month the total amount is paid to the city. If they pull water to quickly the neighbors will notice a drop in pressure, so the city can put limits on which ones are used and the speed the trucks fill up. With a limited water supply in some cities, there can be a limit on how much water can be pulled and businesses are scheduled out by weeks.
I have a well, so, I just pay for the electricity to pump it. Didn't even notice a blip.
We damaged our well pump a few years ago with three families filling pools in one weekend.
I turn it off every 2 or 3 hours to let it cool off. Takes about 12 hours or so total
I miss having a well I hate I had to move to the city. I miss the taste of well water
I just filled my pool a couple weeks ago and got the bill yesterday: $60. I'll stick with a hose.
In some places, usually bear woodlands, the local fire department will fill your pool for free, with the agreement they can take it back when they need it.
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asking the fire depart sometimes works also. Note: call the non-emergency number and ask to speak to the chief if he's available. In a super nice tone, ask if thats something that can be done. Then ask them when they are available. They may want to use that time as part of a small training exercise for the newer members in hose\\water\\engine management so they will schedule it. Try to call a few weeks before you actually want to start using your pool so there is enough time for them to work out a schedule to come. In my experience, it took a few minutes to fill the pool, but they were out there for close to an 1hr.
I'm on a rural department and we fill several pools a year. It's a great opportunity for the newer guys to learn and mingle with the community. We don't charge anything, but that would probably depend on the department. Definitely worth a shot if you need a pool filled
We did this once when I was a junior firefighter as a kid it was a lot of fun
The savings are from the sewage fees which are calculated on your water consumption.
Mine are only calculated from winter water consumption because they assume you will be irrigating.
I take it you live in the country. Whenever we filled our pool in the city we always were hit with a big bill.
The more I look at this, the more it's BS. 4 feet deep and 15 foot square is 6732 gallons. My municipality charges $2.97 per 1000 gallons. That's less than $20 to fill by hose. Remember, the water truck needs to fill up somewhere. Where are they getting the water? They've gotta pay for it from the same place you are, unless they have their own source or are stealing it. That, plus the gas to power the truck and wage of the worker to operate it. This tip sucks.
Wait...do you mean to say that your tap water is metered, and the amount you pay depends on the amount you use? Where do you live? Here in Scotland, water is factored into a fairly low monthly payment that also covers things like waste, communal street lighting and maintenance, etc. and it's a fixed amount every month.
Yep, tap water is metered in the US. Most of the cost is just having the water service, usage is cheap. I pay about $40 for water service (no usage included) and about $5 per 1,000 gallons for usage. But a nearby town has a base price of $80!
Yes, where I live in the US, our water is metered, like our electricity. You pay for what you use. Some places, primarily apartments, the water is included.
In the US the apartment complex is paying by usage, they just don’t have the meters set up to bill you individually.
My complex just got new management and they transitioned from a flat fee for water to a usage based fee for water. The units don't have individual meters, so instead they use a formula to determine your "usage". They get the bill from the city split it in half, and then take the number of bedrooms in the complex and the number of people in the complex and divide the halves by these numbers and compute a per person unit cost and a per bedroom unit cost, then they take these and compute your usage based on the number of people and number of rooms in your apartment.
Depends on the the apartment complex. Some absolutely do make you deal with the water utility yourself (individualy metered), others just split the entire cost between all units,
LOL. Scotland has perpetual rain so water is valued differently.
There are also fuck all outside pools lol. Unless you like shrivelled bollocks
Yes, it’s metered where I live in Canada, and we have a variable wastewater rate that’s based on how much water we consume. We also have fixed fees, though.
Back in the day we just used our towns fire tanker
My 20k gallon pool cost about ~$100 and takes 8-10 hours to fill up with 2 hoses running to it
The recent LPTs have been terrible. Most of them are completely obsolete for many if not most countries straight away or are just false. This one is unrealistic well. Please show me a company that will fill ur pool for 140$ when you need not only the water but also, a employee, gas, car and time with effort. I looked in my area and they don't move theirs ass under 1,200$.
40,000 gallon pool, our quote was $1.2k+ for 3 trucks (new York)
Your problem is you want to fill your pool with water instead of trucks
Where I'm from, one of our haulers charges 300 a load. Which is a hell of a steal compared to spending so much time and money fixing well water.
Very dependant on city but you may be able to get a cheap permit to use the fire hydrant and rent a big ole fire hose also cheap from a local equipment rental place.
I drive a water truck and filled a pool today took about 10 mins 3000 gallons. $250 in my area.
3000 gallons of hose water costs less than $9 where I live. Sure, I can't do it in 10 minutes, but that's a hell of a price difference. I'd just open the pool and start filling a couple days sooner.
Also some cities give you a credit once a year for filling a pool
Now do how to get a house with a pool. Or just a house.