Hot water for several units
One tank sized for one family, serving three households.
Weston
Weston has century houses with three doorbells on them
One of the oldest settlements in Toronto, and a lot of its original housing now holds more than one household. That combination — very old pipe, shared between separate tenancies — is the Weston job.
One building, several households
A century house divided into flats has plumbing that was never designed for the arrangement. One stack serves everybody. One water heater often serves everybody. One service line brings water in for everybody. The result is that a problem is rarely confined to the unit where it appears.
The most common call is the hot water one: the whole building runs cold when one unit showers. That is a single tank sized for a single family being asked to serve three. It is solvable — a larger unit, multiple units, or tankless — but which answer is right depends on where the gas and venting run, and that is a survey rather than a phone estimate.
The second most common is a blockage that affects the lower unit while the upper units carry on unaware. Same principle as anywhere: everything meets the restriction on the way out and the lowest opening is where it shows.
Who calls, who pays, who lets us in
Multi-unit work has a coordination problem that single-family work does not, and getting it wrong wastes a visit that somebody still pays for.
In Ontario, maintaining a rental property in a good state of repair generally sits with the landlord, including the plumbing. In practice what matters to us is simpler: we need whoever is authorising the work to be the person we are talking to, and we need access arranged before we arrive. A tenant cannot usually authorise a repair to a shared stack. Tell us the situation when you book and we will plan around it rather than turning up to a locked door.
Pipe of an uncertain age
Weston''s oldest housing predates the standards that make pipe easy to identify, and in a building that has been divided, extended and repaired over a century you can find four materials in one basement. Lead is worth mentioning specifically: it was used for water service lines into older Toronto properties, and while it has long been replaced in most places, some older service lines remain. If you have an older Weston property and have never had the service line identified, it is worth knowing.
Most requested here
What Weston calls us about
Old buildings doing a harder job than they were built for.
Shared stack backups
The lowest unit floods while the upper ones carry on unaware.
Unidentified old pipe
Four materials in one basement is not unusual here.
Unit conversions
Done so an inspector signs it off, not just so it works.
Questions
Plumbing in Weston
My house is divided into flats. Should I call you, or should my tenant?
Whoever is authorising and paying should be the person we deal with, and for a rental that is normally the landlord. A tenant reporting a fault is fine and often how we first hear about it. What we need before arriving is a decision-maker on the phone and access arranged.
The whole building loses hot water when one unit showers. Can that be fixed?
Yes. You have a tank sized for one household serving several, so it empties faster than it recovers and everyone after the first shower gets what is left. Options are a bigger tank, more than one, or tankless — which is right depends on where the gas and venting run.
Do I have to give tenants notice before plumbing work?
For non-emergency work in an occupied unit, generally yes. Ontario tenancy rules require proper written notice before entry, with genuine emergencies the exception. We are not the right people to advise you on the legislation. We will work to whatever notice you have arranged rather than turning up unannounced.
There are several different pipe materials in my basement. Is that a problem?
Not automatically, but worth understanding. A century building repaired repeatedly accumulates whatever was standard at each repair. We look for two things: dissimilar metals joined directly, which corrode at the join, and changes in diameter that create restrictions you feel at one fixture. Both are fixable.
Is it cheaper to replace all the plumbing in a multi-unit house at once?
Per metre of pipe, yes — the setup, access and disruption spread across one job instead of several. Against that, doing it all at once affects every unit simultaneously, which is a real problem if they are tenanted. Most owners we work with stage it, timed around turnover.
Multi-unit property, single old stack?
Call for anything urgent, or book online and we'll confirm a window.