Frigid winter tough on city’s water pipes

REGINA – An unusual amount of pipes have been bursting in Regina, especially in the past two weeks and the city blames the increase on extremely cold temperatures combined with a lack of snow for insulation.

“It started out pretty average for January and February, up until about two weeks ago,” said John Ullrich, City of Regina’s manager of water and sewer construction. “One of our senior operators came in this morning. He’s been here for 30 years and he said he’s never seen a frost this deep.”

City crews have responded to about 140 water main and service leaks, so far this year. On average they repair 52 in February, but crews have already surpassed that amount. As of Tuesday morning, they had another 34 outstanding.

With a limited amount of resources, the city is trying to prioritize which spots get to first, based on the number of people affected.

“When you have a lot of leaks and leaks causing damage and maybe multiple homes out of water, of course you respond to those ones first. And the single family dwellings might have to wait a little longer,” said Ullrich.

Bob Cocks, who has owned a house in the Normanview area for 40 years, found water gushing in through one of his basement windows on Tuesday morning.

“It’s good we were home and not out for the morning or anything,” said Cocks. “I went down to the basement to the fridge and I could hear this water running and I finally realized after pulling the fridge out it wasn’t coming from inside.”

Crews are also dealing with an unusual number of pipes freezing, 34 to date this winter.

“If it’s frozen on the city’s side, that’s our responsibility and sometimes we have to excavate to put a thaw rod,” said Ullrich.