A group of families at a southeast Calgary townhouse complex are wrestling with a lack of water after a burst water main revealed some serious leaks in the building’s water system.

A five metre deep hole has been dug into the ground at Hubalta Village S.E. to deal with the issue and until it’s been fixed and passes inspection, all residents in the complex are needing to subsist on external sources of water.

Officials say it will take some time to fix.

“It’s a big job. It’s probably going to be about 20 days,” said Brent Forry with Brothers Mechanical. “This one won’t be too long; probably taking about another five days and then we have another water main break down at the other end.”

The water main first broke on August 8 and the City of Calgary sent crews to set up emergency water supplies for residents and went out looking for leaks.

They came back with information on two leaks and bad news for the complex manager.

“It took a few days for the leak locators to determine exactly where the leak was and so after those couple of days they determined that it was, in fact, on the private side,” said Corey Colbran with the City of Calgary Construction Services.

The property manager has brought in water to supply the residents now, about 500 gallons, more than the city offered.

Nevertheless, the lack of running water is a headache for residents.

“It’s just camping in the house. That’s what I keep telling the boys,” said Giovanna Sheppard.

She says they are managing and it isn’t so bad. “My kids love it. They’re learning all about these trucks like it’s an education for my younger ones and for us it’s like well, how did my grandparents? My grandparents didn’t have water.”

While some residents are scheduled to have their water restored soon, work hasn’t yet begun on another broken pipe.

That could put another two to three week delay before services are fully restored.

Once the repairs are done, the lines will be flushed, checked for leaks and the water will need to be tested too.

(With files from CTV Calgary’s Bill Macfarlane)