Township helps those with frozen pipes
Staff at Clearview Township has been doing what it can to help residents with frozen pipes.
Clearview Township water and sewer manager Todd Patton said, as of Wednesday, there were 13 households requiring township assistance because they were without water due to frozen pipes.
The township is doing what it can to help.
On Monday, Patton said, crews were excavating to get to pipes in Creemore. Staff was able to connect a temporary line to a separate watermain connection to the property.
In some cases, workers have thawed lines inside homes. In other cases, temporary connections have been made to neighbours’ homes, in order to get water flowing inside houses. Once the water in flowing, people are keeping the tap open to ensure it won’t freeze again.
People won’t be charged for the extra water or for their neighbours’ usage, said Mike Rawn, general manager of environmental services for the township.
“There’s only one resident that I am aware of that is completely without water only because there’s no way, unless they want to excavate the line and put a new line in, which gets costly this time of year,” said Patton.
Extreme cold temperatures have been causing pipes to freeze in the region. Patton said it can be at the road or within the lot, depending how deep the line is.
“Generally they are frozen from the property line in as there’s less control when they are installed, and some of these could be 50 years old, on how deep they went,” said Patton. “They are generally frozen on the homeowner’s side.”
He said there were some issues last year, including some problems with the township’s pipes that were fixed and those have not frozen this year.
Patton said with the warmer temperatures this week, freezing pipes may still be an issue as the ground is still frozen.
Clearview Township has even gone so far as to supply water to one farmhouse outside of Stayner, until the pipes thaw.
“It’s a little thing that we’re helping out with to make it more comfortable for the lady living there,” said Patton. “It‘s nice to be in a small town where people do that for each other. We’re not like Collingwood where we have hundreds of places so we can manage it right now. If it gets to be a lot more, it will be a little tougher but we’re fortunate we have the staff and the resources here to be able to help people out.”
