I wish I had sooner than I actually did. In fact, I never did. It's the town who called to say that the water usage had gone from 500 gallons to 1400 gallons. Oy veh. More than the extra cost we'll have to pay is the total waste of water.
Naturally, the leak is just a foot above the water meter; if it were below, the town would be liable. It never works that way.
This is an old house with an old foundation (stacked slate). Unfortunately, the big hole in the foundation, which is badly stuffed with insulation (an incomplete job) such that I can see daylight through the cellar wall, is right by the water pipe. So what you see in this picture is a fountain of water that has frozen. The cellar is probably about 25 degrees.
So, as I wait for someone to come over with insulation and perhaps fix the leak, I have turned the water supply almost all the way off and left the kitchen sink running.
This comes at the end of a day when I went into the church this morning to find it was 28 in there because the oil had coagulated and the furnace quit.
The high of the day was minus 8.
The deacon with whom I am working wanted to experience life in a small rural parish. I keep telling her that a lot of my day is spent with old buildings and furnaces. Every once in a while, I get to do something sacramental.
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