Straight talk from The Drain Man

Bill Barber – The Drain Man

I had an interesting chat this week with “The Drain Man” — 66-year old master plumber Bill Barber.

Barber has become a familiar face in Birch Cliff since the basement flooding one month ago today.  I caught up with him on Kalmar Avenue, working on Pete Dickens’ house.

Barber has 51 years experience in the plumbing business.  He started on the day he turned 15 years old.

For the last 39 years, he’s owned “The Drain Man”, a plumbing business based in the Beach.

Barber is not one to mince words and I thought it would be interesting to publish the entire interview unedited.

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Q:  From your professional perspective, as someone who’s helping a lot of these homeowners, what is the issue here?

A:  “The city sewer is not big enough, plain and simple.  It hasn’t been big enough for 25 years and it’s getting worse with age.  It’s not wine, it doesn’t get better, it’s going downhill.  The sewer system just won’t take the volume.  And on top of that a few years ago they put in all those homes at Warden and St. Clair, many, many more homes, and that’s just made the problem ten times worse.  We know that the water that came three weeks ago was 74 mm or something, and it’s more than we’ve ever had before.  That still doesn’t make the excuse for anybody saying, “well, it was only once”, because it’s going to happen again.  The weather’s changing.  It’s going to happen again and these people are going to flood again.”

Sewer on Warden Avenue, south of Kingston Road

Q:  The city is calling it a “100-year storm” and here we are a month later and….

A:  “…we get hit by another one. It’s ridiculous because the whole weather pattern of the world is changing right  now, this is part of the result of it. The bottom line is that the city has to do something to help these people.  A lot of them are pensioners, a lot of them don’t have any money, and they’re paying out huge amounts.  We’ve just been told on South Bonnington from three homeowners that the insurance is refusing to pay.  They are refusing now any claims because they’re saying it’s a city problem and the insurance company is not responsible to pay for it.”

Crescentwood Road, July 15th. Photo Credit: Hannah Korbee

Q:  Are all the sewers down here not big enough?

A:  “All the sewers. We’ve got problems on Manderly.  I’ve got five jobs on Birchcliff, we’re on Kalmar right now, I have about eight projects on Kalmar, so it’s this whole subdivision that is in trouble.”

Foremski bathroom

Q:  How many houses are you doing altogether?

A:  “Twenty projects in Birch Cliff itself.  Still in Birch Cliff, if you go south on Warden Avenue, down to that area, last week there was a pod on everybody’s driveway. There was another sewer company in there and they were doing another ten projects.  So it’s the whole area.  For us, it’s kind of been a blessing, business-wise.  But Jesus, you don’t want to take old people.  And you don’t want to keep charging people when you know  this is a temporary fix.  This is not a permanent fix that we’re doing.  It is temporary.  And when the city changed the bylaws and said now you have to disconnect all your roof drains, they broke the plumbing bylaws as well for the interior of the house, and it’s still written in the plumbing code.  You can read it for yourself.  It says that if you do that there is no trap primes in the house, which now causes sewer back-up.  So now there’s a health risk.  It’s all part of the plumbing code and it goes back for years.  And we had the best plumbing systems in the world.  Now because of all these changes that people are making, trying to put a band-aid on things, we’ve changed all that.”

Judy Foremski, with belongings headed for the dump

Health risks

“And the health risks now are becoming very apparent.  When sewers back up into somebody’s home, you might as well go to India or Pakistan because that’s what’s happened there and there they’ve got cholera and typhoid and all the rest of it. That’s where it comes from, from the sewers.These sewers have got to be fixed. And I don’t care what Mayor Ford says, he doesn’t have any money, he’d better find it and try and help these people, because these are the people that pay the taxes. And that’s the way I feel.  That’s honest to God.”

Water levels were thigh-high at Wirral Court, Chine Drive area

Q:  It’s so sad….

A:   “This is ridiculous.  There are a lot of people here that don’t even have an income.  And if the insurance companies turn around and say that they’re not fixing it, what are these people going to do?  I mean, they’re pensioners. They’re 85!  I’ve got one woman over here she’s got to be 79 and I’ve got another woman over here…who’s 88…how the hell are they, what are these people supposed to do?  Now this one here we were fortunate enough to get the city involved.  They came down and it was very apparent that the sewer backed up in the street and pushed all that sewage and debris up into the house. So now we have to power push all the drains to clean them. City didn’t do it, we did.  City did their part.  So she paid me $2,400 plus tax on that job. With a $100 permit, she gets $1,250 back.  Surely to God the city can help her.”

Q:  What should people be wary of?

A:  “First of all (make sure) that the plumbers are licensed.  They should have a “P” number, which is a master plumber’s license.  Also, the city needs it to give them a rebate from the city.  Secondly, the prices that are being given out are exorbitant and should not exceed $2,000 for a backwater valve.  Also, a lot of people are going around with cell phone numbers.  Make sure that the company is a registered company with a local number, rather than these people now coming into the area with cell phones saying “yes we can do it”.  We know of instances where this has happened, people have been charged $5,000 and being in and out in half a day.  The people have no chance of getting their money back and secondly they’re charged over double for the job.”

That was the end of the interview. Feel free to scroll down and leave a comment.