WINNIPEG – A contractor who has thawed frozen pipes at hundreds of Winnipeg homes says the city is making the job difficult.
Don Connor of Shields Plumbing and Heating said the city won’t allow him to operate water valves on city property and isn’t sending city staff promptly to do the work.
“We ended up stopping our current thawing method that we were using with electric thawing machines,” said Don Connors of Shields Plumbing and Heating. “So we stopped, ceased and desisted, did exactly what the city had asked.”
The City of Winnipeg has had 2,304 reports of frozen pipes since November and can’t keep up with requests for thawing services. There were 1,360 properties on the list for thawing services on Tuesday.
Instead of using electrical thawing machines, the company has been forced to use hot water to thaw pipes – a more labour-intensive, time-consuming method.
The city said it will help private contractors by appointment, but a bylaw states city workers must operate the valves to prevent damage.
“We are required to control access to the system. We will work with contractors and we can attend by appointment to provide a key and provide that access. We’re not preventing anybody from thawing attempts on private property,” said Tim Shanks, a city water distribution engineer.
All that’s required is a call to 311, city officials said.
“If any contractor needs us to attend an appointment, we have the capacity to meet that appointment,” said Shanks.
“Usually we can provide same-day service for appointments for turn-off repairs.”
But Connors said he will no longer do electrical thawing until the city makes it less difficult.
“We made calls to the city, ‘Hey, can we get someone out here to locate the water box and bring out a water key?’and they said, ‘Sure, not a problem. I’ll put a request in,’ “ Connors said. “That was through 311 and that request ended up going nowhere.”
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