The tank

Well, two to be more precise. Every day, the stop cock to the blue second tank has to be turned on to fill. The filling takes quite some time and so with no mechanism to stop the flow, it inevitably overflows and then there is a big panic to switch the stop cock off. It is such a pain, and if I am the one who switches the water on and forgets to switch it off, I get the wrath of the landlady down my throat – I hate these tanks.

As an engineer, it was inevitable that I was going to examine this problem and despite my dislike for 3/5ths of the family, I offered up diagram sketches of four solutions to the boss, who I do like and respect.

1. Seal the top of the blue tank 2 and glue in to the lid a length of drain pipe, to raise the level above that of tank 1.

2. Raise tank 2 to the level of tank 1.

3. lower the float mechanism in tank 1, down to the level of tank 2.

4. remove tank 2 altogether and run the taps from the orange tank 1. Tank 2 serves no purpose whatsoever.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself and a couple of the other male tenants were looking in, to see what was going on, with us climbing up and examining the tanks. They liked what I had drawn and agreed that all would work.

The boss just scratched his head and stared at me in disbelief, as if to say, ‘what’s wrong with just switching the tap off’!

Dave