Dealing with frozen pipes after last week’s power outage in Yellowknife? You’re not alone.
Residents and businesses in the city, Ndılǫ and Dettah were left in the dark for around four hours last Thursday evening.
The NWT Power Corporation – which originally attributed the outage to wildlife interference – has since said it was caused by a failed electrical connection within the Jackfish Lake substation.
With the temperature below -20C at the time, some residents’ water lines ended up freezing.
Among them was artist Alison McCreesh, whose family woke up on Friday morning to find they had no running water.
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She said they have since been using jugs of water from neighbours, going to the pool to bathe and doing their dishes in a bucket. She said they are on the waitlist with a local steam company to have their water lines thawed.
“I don’t want to overstate it,” she said. “Plenty of people don’t have running water and it’s a very first world problem.
“None of it is insurmountable, but it’s definitely an inconvenience.”
McCreesh, who has owned her home for around 10 years, said she has previously dealt with the sewage outline from her home freezing when the temperature is below -40C. She said this is the first time her home’s water intake line has frozen.
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McCreesh said she wanted to share her experience to help educate other people about the potential impacts of power outages.
“I feel like this is one of those things where, with hindsight, you feel like an idiot, but I’m standing by the fact that we’ve lived in this house for 10 years and it’s never been an issue,” she said, adding her family has a wood stove and the temperature in her home never dropped.
“It wasn’t the circumstances that would normally cause our sewage line to freeze.”
‘My phone does not stop ringing’
Jody Poitras, at Pick’s Steam, said by Friday afternoon the company had received calls about 73 homes and 10 commercial properties that were without running water.
“My phone does not stop ringing,” she said during an interview with Cabin Radio on Monday morning.
By that time, Poitras said, the company had whittled the list down to 49 homes and 10 commercial properties that needed help thawing their water lines.
“This is not normal at all,” Poitras said, explaining the company normally deals with about two water line issues a week between October and December.
“The last time that this happened, there was a power outage, I think it took almost a month to get through that whole list,” she said.
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“That was the last time there was a great big power outage of over four hours and it was cold. And that would be years and years ago.”
Poitras said one of the issues with frozen water lines is that they can split, potentially leading to a water break. She said homes in older areas with smaller water lines have a higher likelihood of splitting.
She said half-inch lines are particularly troublesome as they are often “really old, thin, and the copper just thins out over time.”
“It being the smaller line, that’s the ones that we’ve been seeing split more,” she said.
How to prevent frozen water lines
To prevent water lines from freezing during power outages in cold temperatures, Poitras said homeowners should alternate between turning off either their return or supply line and then running the water for 15 minutes before switching.
She said when the power goes out and it’s cold, people should start doing that within about half an hour of an outage beginning.
McCreesh similarly shared advice she was given by a neighbour to:
- turn on the cold bathroom tap to medium flow or the size of your little finger;
- identify the shutoff valves on incoming and return lines for the circulating pump;
- turn one off for 20 minutes, leaving the other open;
- after 20 minutes, close the open line and open the other line;
- alternate this process every 20 minutes; and
- after the power returns, make sure both valves are open before turning the tap off.
Poitras added that people should should make sure the water lines under their homes are properly insulated.
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