Well Toronto is certainly seeing its fair share of frozen pipe flooding. In some cases its affecting the home owners pipes and in other cases its a pipe bursting that comes under the responsibility of the city. Either way it creates one big mess. So what can you do about it?
The first thing you want to do is your part which can only be directed to the pipes in your house, and you want to put the time into preventative measures rather than dealing with the flood problems.
A lot of people right now in the Toronto and GTA are just keeping their fingers crossed that this cold weather snap isn’t going to target them when it comes to their water supply. Crossing fingers isn’t going to do it.
Know where your water pipes are running. If they are running across your garage then make sure you keep the garage doors closed. Open interior doors like your kitchen cupboards, bathroom cabinet doors and other doors that may be close to the pipes. This allows extra heat to get to the pipes from the interior of the house.
Leave the pipes trickling a little to help them keep from freezing. Also, don’t turn the house temperature down at night. You may be able to snuggle under warm blankets but your pipes can’t.
When the awful happens:
In the event your pipes do freeze this is awful but not the worst that can happen. You now have the tedious job of thawing them out. How tedious this is depends on how easily you can get to them. A strong indicator of your pipes being frozen is if when you turn them on you are only seeing a trickle of water or none at all. For some really good tips you can see them at cbc provided by the Red Cross.
When the worst happens:
The worst is if the pipes burst and now you are dealing with a flood. Chances are you don’t have a sump pump to help you expel the water, but if this winter is an indication of the kind of weather factors that we are going to be dealing with in the future it might be well worth getting one. To even further beef up your security for this item you may want to think about also utilizing a water pump sensor.
When the flooding is as a result of your plumbing issue you at least can take immediate action for the cleanup. When its the city’s problem however, it is out of your control, and to find out how bad that can just listen to your local news.
