A
Anonymous
Guest
Hello,
I saw the thread recently from the person who seems to have a shared electricity supply and I wondered if anyone can help with a similar issue that we may have with our water supply.
We live an old house (late 18th C) which was once one of the former support buildings for an old Manor house. The Manor house burnt down in 1911 and all of the buildings that formed the service buildings for the manor (eg stables, servants quaters, diary blacksmith etc.) were converted to houses on the 1970's. Our particular house is divided into two properties - ours and our neighbours. It is a single building which at some time was divided into two homes.
We have recently had some new neigbours and have found ourselves being woken up (or at least my wife has been) by the sound of water running through pipes very early in the morning. This turned out to be due to the fact that our neighbour rises for work at about 5:00AM and the water noise was due to the fact that the water supply pipes for his property happen to run through our house before reaching his water meter which is in his loft. Although this has been winding up my wife I must admit I wasn't really bothered as it was the sort of thing I expected in old homes.
However, recently, I had cause to do some work on our cold water cistern. Consequently, I shut off out water at the rising main in our kitchen. Everythig was fine until the point when I spoke to my neighbour later in the day and he asked me if we had had problems with our water being turned off! It turns out that when we shut off our water supply it shuts his water off as well.
Should this sort of thing be allowed to happen? I have a particular concern as a few years ago we installed a water softener. I assume that given that the water softener is after the rising main that this means we are softening my neighbours water as well and indeed that he cannot currently get untreated (unsoftened) water.
Am I right in assuming that given that we were unaware of this situation that we did nothing wrong in installing the water softener? I was under the impression that anything after the rising main in a property that it is OK to install things like water softeners etc.
We are now very concerned about this problem as it now would seem to mean that we can never turn off our water without shutting off our neighbour as well. I should add that we are not on a meter but the current situation would seem to mean to me that we could never have one either!
Can anyone offer any advice or advise as to where we stand in this situation. My particular concerns are:
1) Our neigbours water supply runs through our house. What happens if there are leaks in this situation?
2) Our neighbour is presumably, as a result of the above, only capable of getting softened water. Could we get into problems for having installed the water softener? Could we be made to turn it off?
3) We cannot turn off our water supply without turning off our neighbours supply as well. Is this considered generally acceptable?
I should add that when we bought the house this did not come up in the survey or via our solicitors when the house was bought. We have lived in the house for about 9 years.
Sorry for the long winded message. Any help or advise anyone could give would be greatly appreciated.
Marcus
I saw the thread recently from the person who seems to have a shared electricity supply and I wondered if anyone can help with a similar issue that we may have with our water supply.
We live an old house (late 18th C) which was once one of the former support buildings for an old Manor house. The Manor house burnt down in 1911 and all of the buildings that formed the service buildings for the manor (eg stables, servants quaters, diary blacksmith etc.) were converted to houses on the 1970's. Our particular house is divided into two properties - ours and our neighbours. It is a single building which at some time was divided into two homes.
We have recently had some new neigbours and have found ourselves being woken up (or at least my wife has been) by the sound of water running through pipes very early in the morning. This turned out to be due to the fact that our neighbour rises for work at about 5:00AM and the water noise was due to the fact that the water supply pipes for his property happen to run through our house before reaching his water meter which is in his loft. Although this has been winding up my wife I must admit I wasn't really bothered as it was the sort of thing I expected in old homes.
However, recently, I had cause to do some work on our cold water cistern. Consequently, I shut off out water at the rising main in our kitchen. Everythig was fine until the point when I spoke to my neighbour later in the day and he asked me if we had had problems with our water being turned off! It turns out that when we shut off our water supply it shuts his water off as well.
Should this sort of thing be allowed to happen? I have a particular concern as a few years ago we installed a water softener. I assume that given that the water softener is after the rising main that this means we are softening my neighbours water as well and indeed that he cannot currently get untreated (unsoftened) water.
Am I right in assuming that given that we were unaware of this situation that we did nothing wrong in installing the water softener? I was under the impression that anything after the rising main in a property that it is OK to install things like water softeners etc.
We are now very concerned about this problem as it now would seem to mean that we can never turn off our water without shutting off our neighbour as well. I should add that we are not on a meter but the current situation would seem to mean to me that we could never have one either!
Can anyone offer any advice or advise as to where we stand in this situation. My particular concerns are:
1) Our neigbours water supply runs through our house. What happens if there are leaks in this situation?
2) Our neighbour is presumably, as a result of the above, only capable of getting softened water. Could we get into problems for having installed the water softener? Could we be made to turn it off?
3) We cannot turn off our water supply without turning off our neighbours supply as well. Is this considered generally acceptable?
I should add that when we bought the house this did not come up in the survey or via our solicitors when the house was bought. We have lived in the house for about 9 years.
Sorry for the long winded message. Any help or advise anyone could give would be greatly appreciated.
Marcus