Brokers and insurers hear an awful lot about installing sump pumps and flood mitigation techniques for disaster resilience. However, what if the actual installation of those mitigation efforts is being botched?
Among Ontario municipalities, 90% aren’t applying building code standards to inspecting drainage systems according to Dan Sandink, director of research at Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR).
Sandink highlighted the findings of his 2016 joint survey with Norton Engineering on Inflow and Infiltration in New Subdivisions at the Flood Risk Summit.
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“What we’re finding is codes and standards are often not enforced properly,” Sandink said. “There’s a big space underneath this (sewage) pipe. What happens is when you fill in this excavation you put a lot of weight on this pipe. It causes it to crack, it causes it to sag and this is a big problem for homeowners down the road.”
The below code installation Sandink described is almost universal, he said, and means overflowing sewers can affect everyone.
“There’s the insurance claims and sewer backup claims and that sort of thing, but municipalities also have to treat this water, they have to hire staff to implement iodine reduction programs,” Sandink said.
“For the City of Hamilton last year, for the average home with downspouts connected to the sanitary sewer system it cost the municipality between $6,000 and $11,000 per year to service those downspouts that don’t need to be in the sewer system.”
The ICLR, Sandink said, is working to make the business case for better building code inspections by telling the insurance community and governments that it’s cheaper to install spout systems correctly the first time.
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