Plumbing snake in pipe causes B.C. wastewater backup

A Vancouver strata owner lost her bid for $45,146 in compensation after sewage flowed through a sink into her University of British Columbia apartment in 2023.

British Columbia Civil Claims Tribunal member Micah Carmody said in his speech. Decision of October 31 that sewage flowed from Tintin Chen’s kitchen sink while a strata contractor was “hydroflushing” a public sewer pipe.

Chen said the strata were responsible for the water damage and demanded compensation to cover restoration work, repairs and the cost of temporary housing.

The group, however, asked that the lawsuit be dismissed, saying the backup was caused by an unexpected clog in a sewer line in the parking lot below Chen’s home.

On March 9, 2023, Chen returned home to find that her kitchen sink had leaked a significant amount of sewage.

Strata said the hydro flushing company recovered a large metal plumbing snake from a sewer line at the park – likely from someone trying to clear their own line and losing the snake, according to a March 15, 2023, email from Strata’s building manager.

Both colleagues and Chen agreed that the backup occurred after hydroflushing clogged the wastewater line.

trata took appropriate action when

The strata hired a disaster restoration contractor to mitigate the damage, which Carmody considered an appropriate action.

The tribunal member said there was no evidence that previous hydroflushing of the pipes would have prevented the backup, and he disagreed with Chen that backflow testing before hydroflushing could have prevented the incident.

According to him, this was not what people might have expected.

“Overall, I find that these strata were not negligent in the way they maintained the public pipes,” Carmody said.

“For these reasons, I dismiss Ms. Chen’s claim.”