Tricks of the trade... What is yours?

[Dustin Woodley]

One trick we use sometime is take a water hose from the back of a washer machine... I carry one in my trunk (With a plunger). Go to the neighbor and offer them $10 cash to run a hose from their outside faucet to your house for a few hours. Run the washer machine (keep this part out side) hose and a garden hose to the washer hookup on the house you need water on and now turn the outside faucet on. In about 30 seconds you have running water for a few hours! We will sometime use this to get a house leaned really fast. Now you have not had to set up a account with the local water board and pay a turn on fee. The most a neighbor has ever charged us was $20 and some just say not worry about it. 

[David S.]

Originally posted by @Nathan Gesner:

Your trick doesn't make sense. You say to hook the garden hose to the "washer hookup on the house" but that's a water supply line, meaning water comes out of it. How are you pumping water into it?

And what difference does it make if you use a garden hose or if you use the washer hose from the back of the washer machine? It's a just a hose, just like a garden hose but sometimes nicer. Why would it matter if this is inside or outside or even used at all?

Basically, he is flowing water from the neighbor's outside faucet to the washer faucet inside the house that has no water service.  Since the water company has closed the valve at the curb, you are effectively feeding water into the house via the washing machine faucet.  The flow direction on that faucet is now in instead of out.  The reason he mentioned a washing machine hose is because you need two female fittings, whereas a normal water hose has a female and male. 

This is a way of not hooking up normal water service when you just need water on for an hour or so for cleaning purposes, therefore avoiding hundreds of dollars in hookup and usage fees.  In certain cities, it is very expensive for water service and some charge every month even if the usage is zero.