Hot water being tested to thaw pipes in Winnipeg

WINNIPEG – When it comes to melting ice, hot water seems like a logical tool.

Places like Carman and Selkirk as well as private contractors have touted the success of hot water to thaw pipes.

On Tuesday the City of Winnipeg showed off a hot water machine that officials said they’ve been tinkering with for weeks.

“We started to see more results with it recently,” said city water engineer Tim Shanks.

The machine successfully thaws pipes around half the time, Shanks said. Development of the machine began when the number of frozen pipes started to rise substantially.

“We are trying to improve this technology to get a higher success rate,” he said.

It’s an about-face from Winnipeg officials who recently said the method hadn’t worked.

“Water and waste has provided access to private contractors in order to test the water method and the private contractors have had no success,” said a statement released by Mayor Sam Katz’s office on March 14.

Different communities have different conditions and pipe standards, Shanks said.

“It’s not a cookie-cutter solution,” he said at the time.

City staff are using three DBH machines as well as a handful of smaller electrical current machines. There are also five different hot water machines being tested.

All the equipment available means at any given time, as many as 10 properties can be thawed simultaneously, Shanks said.