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Winter in Ottawa offers plenty to enjoy, but frozen water pipes are not among them. With fluctuating temperatures and the potential for prolonged cold spells, frozen water pipes can become a concern for some households.
As frost penetrates deeper into the ground, it can cover water lines – the underground pipes connecting your home’s plumbing to the City’s watermain – in a frozen block.
But do not fret over the freeze! Remember Thomas, Charlie and Robert from the City’s dedicated Water Linear Customer Service team? They are ready to help you keep the water flowing.
How to prevent frozen water pipes
Here are their top tips on how you can protect the water service pipes on your property to ensure uninterrupted access to Ottawa’s exceptional tap water:
What to do if your water pipe freezes
If you’ve turned on your taps and found no water, then you might have a frozen water line. Call 3-1-1 to submit a service request. The City’s First Response Team will assess the issue and determine whether on-site assistance is needed.
With over 3,200 kilometers of underground pipelines the City provides safe drinking water to more than 950,000 customers. If a water service pipe freezes, the First Response Team will work to restore water service to the affected property as soon as possible.
Who is at risk?
Approximately 2,000 homes and businesses in Ottawa have water pipes that are shallower or less insulated, making them more vulnerable to freezing. Seasonal “Run Water” advisories are issued to at-risk properties when frost depths reach critical levels.
The City uses frost depth modeling based on average daily temperatures from Environment Canada’s Ottawa International Airport data. Monitoring begins once daily temperatures consistently drop below zero degrees Celsius.
Learn more
For additional information on preventing frozen water services, visit ottawa.ca/FrozenServices, call 3-1-1 or watch the video below.
Transcript for the "How to thaw your frozen pipes" video
Hi, my name is Tom Smith. I work for the City of Ottawa and the first response section and I'm a customer service person for the City of Ottawa.
My name is Robert Szelski. City of Ottawa First Response and I am also a customer service person.
We're here today to try and get water restored back to this residence. They have a frozen water service and we're going to give you guys some tips and tricks on how to keep your water running all winter.
The customer knows if they have a frozen water service when they turn on their cold water and they notice that they have no water coming to their tap. A lot of the time it'll happen after a flash freeze overnight or a windy cold, -30, -35 night. they turn on their taps in the morning and there's no water coming out their taps.
It could be for multiple reasons, but in the winter it's due mainly to a frozen water service or other work going on in the streets.
If it's deemed that it's a frozen water service, that's where we come in and we go through our process of thawing the water service. The first steps are usually what the customer takes is call 3-1-1. That that phone call gets dispatched to the first response coordinator. The coordinator would then speak with the homeowner and get them to run different faucets within their household to determine if all faucets are frozen. Because there are times when half of the house is frozen and half of the house is not. At that time, we're just sort of determining if it's outside the foundation wall or within the household itself.
We first need to determine where it is frozen underneath the ground. So the first part of the job is thawing from the stand post, which is property line normally to the basement of the residence or the water meter. The homeowner is responsible for that part of the water service. If we thaw that for a length of time and it does not provide water back to the residence, then we thaw the whole water service.
It's the City's responsibility from the stand post or property line back out to the city water main.
A good tip for homeowners too, if they wake up in the morning and they have no water going to their house, but they had water last night and it was a very cold night, the first thing that they should do is go down to their water meter and feel the pipes.
We're looking for any like ice cold. You're feeling the pipes trying to make sure there's heat in that area. If there's no heat and you feel that the pipes are cold, a good process there is to get a space heater or a hairdryer and put it in that area and leave it for 24 hours.
This can take some time to thaw out.
After that point we will come after 24 hours of getting the homeowner to try and heat that specific area where their water meter is.
We'll go in and we'll show you kind of what the water meter looks like and where it's located in the basement.
All right. So this is the water meter room. It is at the front of the house. Most houses, the water meter is at the front of the home. You'll know. And in most houses it is behind closed doors.
Some people like to enclose their entire water meter in these pipes. It seems to me like nobody likes looking at them, so they like to box it in. What happens there as well, it's all boxed in and enclosed, there's no natural circulation, no warm air getting to it.
So a lot of times we find when we come into these homes, if we feel down here, it's a maybe a little bit a little bit cool. But if you start reaching up around this area, sometimes you notice that it's freezing like frozen cold.
So what this does is it gives us a little bit of information into maybe, just maybe it's frozen inside the home as opposed to outside the home. This is where your water service enters your home.
This is where it comes in from the street and to that post that's on property line. It comes in through the floor right here.
When these these are all enclosed and see if it's completely boxed up. There's no circulation going to this at all. As soon as you open this up or open up the doorway to it, you'll see frost, even frost build up. comes up in this is your water meter valve. We like that to be functional.
Sometimes they're not functional. Sometimes either break closed or open. We do our best. We use minimal force to what we use. And we're hoping that this valve will be functioning when we come out, because that's a critical part of our job, what we doing with thawing services.
So we like that to be functional up, there's your water meter and then you'll see everything come up and it starts branching off to the home.
We are in, within the home. So what we do recommend in situations like this with water services freezing is insulating your pipes, especially around up and around your head or space where the seal plate meets the foundation wall, insulating those key point areas. That's usually one of the strongest freezing points.
It's up around this header area, and that would just be a preventive measure. When the customer calls 3-1-1 and it gets triaged to the coordinator when he says to put heat on the service, what he needs is at the very bottom here, very bottom of your water service.
And when he says keep heat on that that would be the area that you're looking at right here. you want to do it at its very lowest point that heat will rise anyways. so that's why we'd like we like the heat at the very bottom Sometimes, a lot of times, it does solve the issue.
This is a thawing machine. This is what we're using to get your water back. This is basically a big generator that pumps out AC current. We run current through our welding wire here, through the water service to the stand post and create a circuit.
And through that amperage, we end up creating heat around the copper and which, in returns, melts the ice in the line.
So in order for us to thaw the line, we need to cables. The duty to cables are connected in the back here. One of these is going into the home and one of these is going to the curb. Stop at the in the middle of the property here. So let's go to the curb. Stop.
So this is our first clamp. It's a property line. This is the water service. This is over six feet deep. Here we have the key, and it's connected down low to the key. So what's going to happen is we're going to send a current through this cable, onto that clamp, onto this key, into the ground, to the water service. it's going to heat up the water service to thaw the line for inside.
So a lot of people don't realize how much cable we need and that we have to go into their household with this cable. We do use windows and doors or anything accessible or the easiest pathway into that service line where it comes through the foundation floor.
This is the clamped it. I'll be clamping onto the water service as it enters the home.
This one's in good condition here. I don't need to send it down or anything like that for a better connection.
So what I can do is I go somewhat to the lowest point to about this area here and with minimal force. I'll just clamp that, make sure that it's not going to fall off. I'll give it a little bit of a wiggle in a shake, this. This will be a part of our connection. So it needs to be somewhat of a firm fit. What happens now is we communicate with each other. He can turn on the machine and he'll start running current through the cable, which will then thaw the water.
We will keep it cold water tap open within the household, close to where I can hear or see. and we have to sit and wait and be patient until the water services restored.
We work on a first come first serve basis. So you might see us at your neighbor's house if we have multiple frozen services on a street, but it's because they have been in the queue longer and we might have to leave the street to go to another call.
That's a heartbreaking part for people is when we end up leaving the street and then we'll say we'll be back. There are times that it becomes extremely busy and difficult for us to reach out and make it to every customer. But we do try our very best to get as many people as we can on the road.
We do only have two of these machines that we're on at a time and and we do have them running at the same time. But there's only a certain amount that we can do with the customers that we do visit.
They understand how long and how much time it can take just for set up and tear down of, of the the equipment that we use. but at the same time everybody does if they just be patient with us, we're trying our best.
I love working for the city of Ottawa. It's a great employer. It's a good work life balance. And when I'm at work, I meet good friends like my buddy Rob here.
We're here to help the residents of Ottawa. We're a 24 hour department. 365. So we're always here. We're a phone call away.
Call 3-1-1. If you need any help.
Ottawa’s water is world-class. Taking preventative measures now will help ensure it continues to flow freely to your taps throughout the winter.
For details on other City programs and services, visit ottawa.ca, call 3-1-1 (TTY: 613-580-2401), or contact the City using Canada Video Relay Service at 613-580-2400. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) for updates.
查看原文...
As frost penetrates deeper into the ground, it can cover water lines – the underground pipes connecting your home’s plumbing to the City’s watermain – in a frozen block.
But do not fret over the freeze! Remember Thomas, Charlie and Robert from the City’s dedicated Water Linear Customer Service team? They are ready to help you keep the water flowing.
How to prevent frozen water pipes
Here are their top tips on how you can protect the water service pipes on your property to ensure uninterrupted access to Ottawa’s exceptional tap water:
- Keep the heat on. Maintain an indoor temperature of at least eight degrees Celsius, even if you’re away for a few days.
- Keep your water lines warm. Leave doors open to areas with water lines or your water meter, especially in cooler basements, to allow heat to circulate.
- Insulate pipes near exterior walls. Wrap foam pipe insulation around pipes that are more likely to freeze such as near exterior walls, in crawl spaces, or in the attic.
- Close your garage. Keep your garage door shut to prevent cold air from reaching hidden water pipes, such as those in the ceiling servicing upstairs bathrooms.
- Disconnect outdoor hoses. When hoses remain connected, the outside taps can’t drain and will freeze. Older taps often have a shutoff valve located in the basement ceiling, locate these, and shut them off for the winter.
- Leave your water service buried. The snow acts as insulation and clearing snow from above allows the frost to dive down to your water line.
- Locate your shut-off valve. Find your home’s interior water shut-off valve and ensure it is operational. This will allow you to act quickly in case of a burst pipe.
What to do if your water pipe freezes
If you’ve turned on your taps and found no water, then you might have a frozen water line. Call 3-1-1 to submit a service request. The City’s First Response Team will assess the issue and determine whether on-site assistance is needed.
With over 3,200 kilometers of underground pipelines the City provides safe drinking water to more than 950,000 customers. If a water service pipe freezes, the First Response Team will work to restore water service to the affected property as soon as possible.
Who is at risk?
Approximately 2,000 homes and businesses in Ottawa have water pipes that are shallower or less insulated, making them more vulnerable to freezing. Seasonal “Run Water” advisories are issued to at-risk properties when frost depths reach critical levels.
The City uses frost depth modeling based on average daily temperatures from Environment Canada’s Ottawa International Airport data. Monitoring begins once daily temperatures consistently drop below zero degrees Celsius.
Learn more
For additional information on preventing frozen water services, visit ottawa.ca/FrozenServices, call 3-1-1 or watch the video below.
Transcript for the "How to thaw your frozen pipes" video
Hi, my name is Tom Smith. I work for the City of Ottawa and the first response section and I'm a customer service person for the City of Ottawa.
My name is Robert Szelski. City of Ottawa First Response and I am also a customer service person.
We're here today to try and get water restored back to this residence. They have a frozen water service and we're going to give you guys some tips and tricks on how to keep your water running all winter.
The customer knows if they have a frozen water service when they turn on their cold water and they notice that they have no water coming to their tap. A lot of the time it'll happen after a flash freeze overnight or a windy cold, -30, -35 night. they turn on their taps in the morning and there's no water coming out their taps.
It could be for multiple reasons, but in the winter it's due mainly to a frozen water service or other work going on in the streets.
If it's deemed that it's a frozen water service, that's where we come in and we go through our process of thawing the water service. The first steps are usually what the customer takes is call 3-1-1. That that phone call gets dispatched to the first response coordinator. The coordinator would then speak with the homeowner and get them to run different faucets within their household to determine if all faucets are frozen. Because there are times when half of the house is frozen and half of the house is not. At that time, we're just sort of determining if it's outside the foundation wall or within the household itself.
We first need to determine where it is frozen underneath the ground. So the first part of the job is thawing from the stand post, which is property line normally to the basement of the residence or the water meter. The homeowner is responsible for that part of the water service. If we thaw that for a length of time and it does not provide water back to the residence, then we thaw the whole water service.
It's the City's responsibility from the stand post or property line back out to the city water main.
A good tip for homeowners too, if they wake up in the morning and they have no water going to their house, but they had water last night and it was a very cold night, the first thing that they should do is go down to their water meter and feel the pipes.
We're looking for any like ice cold. You're feeling the pipes trying to make sure there's heat in that area. If there's no heat and you feel that the pipes are cold, a good process there is to get a space heater or a hairdryer and put it in that area and leave it for 24 hours.
This can take some time to thaw out.
After that point we will come after 24 hours of getting the homeowner to try and heat that specific area where their water meter is.
We'll go in and we'll show you kind of what the water meter looks like and where it's located in the basement.
All right. So this is the water meter room. It is at the front of the house. Most houses, the water meter is at the front of the home. You'll know. And in most houses it is behind closed doors.
Some people like to enclose their entire water meter in these pipes. It seems to me like nobody likes looking at them, so they like to box it in. What happens there as well, it's all boxed in and enclosed, there's no natural circulation, no warm air getting to it.
So a lot of times we find when we come into these homes, if we feel down here, it's a maybe a little bit a little bit cool. But if you start reaching up around this area, sometimes you notice that it's freezing like frozen cold.
So what this does is it gives us a little bit of information into maybe, just maybe it's frozen inside the home as opposed to outside the home. This is where your water service enters your home.
This is where it comes in from the street and to that post that's on property line. It comes in through the floor right here.
When these these are all enclosed and see if it's completely boxed up. There's no circulation going to this at all. As soon as you open this up or open up the doorway to it, you'll see frost, even frost build up. comes up in this is your water meter valve. We like that to be functional.
Sometimes they're not functional. Sometimes either break closed or open. We do our best. We use minimal force to what we use. And we're hoping that this valve will be functioning when we come out, because that's a critical part of our job, what we doing with thawing services.
So we like that to be functional up, there's your water meter and then you'll see everything come up and it starts branching off to the home.
We are in, within the home. So what we do recommend in situations like this with water services freezing is insulating your pipes, especially around up and around your head or space where the seal plate meets the foundation wall, insulating those key point areas. That's usually one of the strongest freezing points.
It's up around this header area, and that would just be a preventive measure. When the customer calls 3-1-1 and it gets triaged to the coordinator when he says to put heat on the service, what he needs is at the very bottom here, very bottom of your water service.
And when he says keep heat on that that would be the area that you're looking at right here. you want to do it at its very lowest point that heat will rise anyways. so that's why we'd like we like the heat at the very bottom Sometimes, a lot of times, it does solve the issue.
This is a thawing machine. This is what we're using to get your water back. This is basically a big generator that pumps out AC current. We run current through our welding wire here, through the water service to the stand post and create a circuit.
And through that amperage, we end up creating heat around the copper and which, in returns, melts the ice in the line.
So in order for us to thaw the line, we need to cables. The duty to cables are connected in the back here. One of these is going into the home and one of these is going to the curb. Stop at the in the middle of the property here. So let's go to the curb. Stop.
So this is our first clamp. It's a property line. This is the water service. This is over six feet deep. Here we have the key, and it's connected down low to the key. So what's going to happen is we're going to send a current through this cable, onto that clamp, onto this key, into the ground, to the water service. it's going to heat up the water service to thaw the line for inside.
So a lot of people don't realize how much cable we need and that we have to go into their household with this cable. We do use windows and doors or anything accessible or the easiest pathway into that service line where it comes through the foundation floor.
This is the clamped it. I'll be clamping onto the water service as it enters the home.
This one's in good condition here. I don't need to send it down or anything like that for a better connection.
So what I can do is I go somewhat to the lowest point to about this area here and with minimal force. I'll just clamp that, make sure that it's not going to fall off. I'll give it a little bit of a wiggle in a shake, this. This will be a part of our connection. So it needs to be somewhat of a firm fit. What happens now is we communicate with each other. He can turn on the machine and he'll start running current through the cable, which will then thaw the water.
We will keep it cold water tap open within the household, close to where I can hear or see. and we have to sit and wait and be patient until the water services restored.
We work on a first come first serve basis. So you might see us at your neighbor's house if we have multiple frozen services on a street, but it's because they have been in the queue longer and we might have to leave the street to go to another call.
That's a heartbreaking part for people is when we end up leaving the street and then we'll say we'll be back. There are times that it becomes extremely busy and difficult for us to reach out and make it to every customer. But we do try our very best to get as many people as we can on the road.
We do only have two of these machines that we're on at a time and and we do have them running at the same time. But there's only a certain amount that we can do with the customers that we do visit.
They understand how long and how much time it can take just for set up and tear down of, of the the equipment that we use. but at the same time everybody does if they just be patient with us, we're trying our best.
I love working for the city of Ottawa. It's a great employer. It's a good work life balance. And when I'm at work, I meet good friends like my buddy Rob here.
We're here to help the residents of Ottawa. We're a 24 hour department. 365. So we're always here. We're a phone call away.
Call 3-1-1. If you need any help.
Ottawa’s water is world-class. Taking preventative measures now will help ensure it continues to flow freely to your taps throughout the winter.
For details on other City programs and services, visit ottawa.ca, call 3-1-1 (TTY: 613-580-2401), or contact the City using Canada Video Relay Service at 613-580-2400. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) for updates.
查看原文...
