Dear Editor:
As one who has seen water, not to mention money, go down the
drain, the article on Jenny Liu’s water bill caught my
attention.
Dear Editor:
As one who has seen water, not to mention money, go down the drain, the article on Jenny Liu’s water bill caught my attention.
I have a toilet whose flap occasionally gets stuck in the open position. When this happens, water will run through my toilet continuously until the flap is seated. This may go on for hours, or longer, as not everyone detects the sound of flowing water.
The flow rate to my toilet is approximately 4 gallons per minute. Size of the tank does NOT affect flow rate; just the amount of time it takes to fill up the tank. At 4 g/m, I could use 240 gallons/hour, 5,760 gallons/day, and 172,800 gallons of water in a 30-day month – and that doesn’t include normal water usage.
Going one step further, it’s been my experience that deodorant/cleaning discs that are put in toilet water tanks can sometimes impede the operation of the flap until they sufficiently dissolve. It’s also been my experience that some of these deodorant/cleaning agents can lead to premature deterioration of the toilet flap, causing the flap not to seal properly, thereby leaking. I’m not saying any of this is Jenny’s problem, but rather a possible explanation on how water, sometimes a lot, can be used without obvious detection. I know, I’ve been there.
As for the city being unreasonable in how Jenny’s problem is being dealt with, having read The Dispatch article, it seems to me that the city is being more than reasonable. In my 25-plus years living here in Gilroy I have had only one water issue with the city, and that was dealt with much to my satisfaction.
I had a city planted tree that cracked my water pipe on my side of the meter within the meter box. Even though I was partially to blame, as I did have some say as to whether the tree was planted and if so, its location, the city reimbursed me without any hassle for the amount of water used in excess of normal usage. So, color me a happy Gilroy resident.
John Walski, Gilroy
Submitted Friday, Oct. 31 to ed****@ga****.com
