City Has Survey On Tap
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 @ 3:57 AM
Prince George, B.C.- There’s a new survey for Prince George residents to take, it’s all about frozen pipes.
Prince George Utility Operations wants to hear from you if you have every had an episode where your water pipes have frozen.
“When a homeowners pipes freeze and break, they typically call the City” says Blake McIntosh, Supervisor of Utility Operations. “ This survey gives us an opportunity to record some data on frozen pipes and if it was an issue inside the home or one of our connections.” They have been collecting this data since the late ‘60’s.
McIntosh says that in the past, during a cold snap, the City could expect to respond to as many as 50 calls of frozen pipes, and in the vast majority of the cases, the issue is inside the home where the furnace has shut down, or someone went away on holidays and reduced the heat.
The good news is, that with our winters being a little milder than they have been in the past, the incidence of frozen pipes has been reduced. Still, McIntosh says the City likes to send out an advisory to people who live in residences which have experienced the problem in the past, to remind them of some of the steps they can take to prevent a recurrence.
Those steps include:
-maintaining a temperature of at least 5 degrees celcius in all basement crawlspaces, garage and closet spaces where waterlines enter the property. If that is not practical, then wrap the lines with heat tape.
-planning the plowing, shovelling and storage of snow to insulate the shallow utilities on your property
-check existing heat tape to make certain they are plugged in and working properly
-insulate all water lines that run along exterior walls
-run a pencil sized continuous stream of water from an existing interior tap during abnormally cold spells.
You can fill in the survey on the City’s website by clicking here.
The City will collect the responses up until the end of January.
Comments
One would think that if the City attended a residence because of frozen pipes, they would have all this information on file.
They do. They have been collecting this data since the late â60âs.
People better be careful what they say on these surveys……
Wish they would run a survey on where our tax dollars are going
Cheers
What is a pencil?
BTW, if I were to pile snow on top of where the city waterline comes into the house, I would have to not use the driveway. The same for my neighbour.
Since the water normally comes in at propety corners, and since most driveways are next to a property line, there is a 50/50 probability that the waterline is running uner a part or the driveway. Thus the recommended 8 foot bury.
Wonder if they’d be interested in the frozen pipes we had in the little house we lived in in the ‘Cache’ in the fifties? It was an ‘ever had’ situation.
Strange because for most people its the septic that they worry about in the cold. From what I understand one does not want to walk on the area where the septic field runs, or have sleds riding over it, or vehicles driving on it… or anything of the sort in the winter as it drives the cold into the ground and increases the likelihood of a frozen septic field.
One would think whether it be a septic field or a intake water line the same advice would apply in that one doesn’t want to do anything that drives the cold into the ground near the pipes.
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