Mike's Comments

June 18, 2010


Putting some ideas into practice:

Over the past few months, I've taken action on a few items that I've previously mentioned in my comments.

The first was replacing the hoses for our washing machine with flexible metal hoses. These are available at any hardware store, are not expensive, and should prevent water damage caused by rupturing of the hoses (the old rubber kind can split and cause alot of damage if it happens when you're not home). We still shut the water off to the machine when it is not in use, but this is an added 'prevention' measure which costs very little and is easy to do.
The second was the installation of a rain barrel. In our case, the Town of Richmond Hill was running a program offering the barrels at a reduced cost. I signed up for it last year and installed the barrel in May. The idea here is to capture some of the runoff water from the roof when it rains, which would otherwise just pour into the storm sewers. The installation took minutes and involved cutting the downspout and reconnecing the bottom so that it aimed for the centre of the barrel, and as an extra precaution I put some anchors in the wall and secured the barrel with a bungee cord so it wouldn't blow away in a storm. The water can be drained out by the hose at the bottom (see photo), which is threaded so that a longer hose could be attached for greater range, otherwise you can just fill buckets of water and use it on plants. The benefits of this simple initiative are:
  1. The water is better than tap water since it is at ambient temperature (cold tap water can shock plants) and has not been treated with chemicals (less energy used to water the plants).
  2. The water captured does not enter the storm sewers. If projects like this were done on a large scale, they could prevent flash flooding, which occurs when all water from heavy rain storms hits the system all at once, overloading its capacity. One barrel holds 220 liters, so in a town the size of Richmond Hill, if 50,000 barrels were installed, 11 million litres of water could be captured and used for plants rather than washing away. Remember too that this happens each time it rains. Now imagine this on an even larger scale such as the City of Toronto....
  3. The water can be stored for a while and used during dry times - though it shouldn't be stored for too long.
Remarkably, just one inch of rain is enough to fill the barrel and provide water for the plants in our front and back yards two or three times over. The total cost to me was about $70. Well worth it.

A few things to remember if you decide to do it - make sure you empty the barrel and turn it upside down before the first freeze occurs - if water freezes inside it will probably break the barrel due to expansion. You will also need to get a downspout extension for the section that has been cut, so that during the winter when the barrel is not in use, you are diverting the water away from the foundation of the home.

Michael Stuart, BBA, FCIP, CRM, CAIB
Grant, Jones & Stuart Insurance Brokers
Phone: 905-470-2732 ext 225
Toll Free: 1-800-445-2270    Fax: 905-470-2762