To: engineeringdept@city.windsor.on.ca
jessica
hi....
i'm hoping this is a good email address, but maybe you could forward this somewhere more appropriate if it isn't?
i'm
renting a basement apartment at cataraqui and marion and am getting a
few problems and am just trying to determine the cause. my landlord
claims there are separate storm and sanitary lines, and i have no reason
to doubt him. his logic is that rainfall should not cause the toilet to
drain slowly, and he's consequently not taking me seriously. i
understand his argument and why it shouldn't happen.
however, i'm a scientifically minded person and i've been able to demonstrate the following:
1)
the slow down is correlated with the rain. that is, the toilet drains
slowly after a rain and drains normally once the rain has dried up. so,
while a block might exist, it's not the primary cause of the slow down.
2)
the amount of slow down is proportional to the amount of rain. that is,
when it rains a little, it slows down a little. when it rains a lot, it
slows down a lot.
despite understanding that these
systems ought to be separated, my brief and aborted training as a
physicist tells me that when you have things that are correlated in a
proportional manner, it is very likely that there is a causal
relationship between them. that is, i have a high degree of certainty
that the rain is causing the toilet to drain slowly in a manner that is
proportional to how much rain is falling.
while it's
august right now, the proportionality has me concerned about spring
runoff, which is of course substantial in canada. i have every reason to
think that that a lot of snow melting could back up the toilet and
cause a horrible mess.
now, i've talked to the
neighbour next door and he's confirmed that he's actual dealing with
back ups through the pipes, which is a worse problem than i have. he's
convinced that the problem is related to sewer replacement on wyandotte
down the road. this only makes sense to me if they might have put the
storm through the sanitary as a temporary measure. is that something the
construction team has done in the short run?
i'm
leaning towards a different cause. at roughly the same time that the
problem started, the house across the street experienced a significant
fire. the property has been completely shut down. i suspect the sump
pump is not running, the basement is flooding and it's draining into the
floor, which is connected to the sanitary and this is causing the
backup. the issue i'm running into in having this make sense is related
to the volume of water running through the floor drain. it's a pretty
big property - it was an apartment before the fire, but it would have
been a five or six bedroom house some time in the middle of the last
century, and it has a very big backyard. so, there's a potential for a
large volume of water to be coming into the floor drain. how likely do
you think it is that this could be the root of the problem? how big a
problem do you think this is going to cause in the spring, if it's not
addressed now? and what is the better solution for this - running a sump
pump on an abandoned property, or closing the drains off? how does the
city deal with something like this, if it's determined to be the cause?
city of windsor, engineering department
I would like to clear up a few points in your email.
While
your landlord may be correct in that the house may be serviced by
separate storm and sanitary connections (I can't confirm that), both
these connections would outlet to the same combined sewer in the road.
There is only one sewer Cataraqui and one on Marion, and they are both
combined sewers meaning that they accept both rain water and sewage.
With
respect to the Wyandotte project, there is no sewer work being
undertaken as part of that project. Windsor Utilities is replacing the
watermain and services and the City will reconstruct the pavement
following that work. This project would have no impact on the sewers
servicing your property.
You are most likely correct in
that there is a correlation between rainfall and the slow running
plumbing in your house. This is due to the combined nature of the sewer
that services your property. During rain events, combined sewers fill
with rainwater and therefore have limited capacity to accept flows from
buildings.
With respect to the apartment building
across the street from you, all rainfall runoff from this property would
have entered the sewer system via foundation drains prior to the fire,
so the fact that the basement may have flooded and the water is now
entering the floor drain would change the drainage pattern very little.
In fact, rainwater entering the sewers from this property would be very
small in proportion to that coming from the catchbasins draining the
roads in the area.
With respect to abandonment of the
connections servicing the apartment building, that would be addressed
when the building is demolished by the Building Department. If you have
concerns regarding the state of
the building, please contact the Building Department via 311.
Hopefully, this answers some of your questions. Please contact me if you want to discuss this matter further.
Sincerely;
----------------, P.Eng.
A/Contracts Co-ordinator
