Drainage and plumbing, Cambie
Drainage and Plumbing in Cambie
Cambie still sits on a lot of combined sewer. Of the 1,846 sewer main segments between 16th and 41st, Granville to Ontario, 711 are combined. That is 38.5 per cent against 24.3 per cent citywide.
It is also the one neighbourhood where the City has a named, funded plan to pull that combined system out. When the City separates your block, your property has to separate too.
The combined sewer under Cambie, and the plan to take it out
The City publishes every sewer main it owns. Inside the Cambie neighbourhood, 16th to 41st and Granville to Ontario, there are 1,846 street main segments and 711 of them are combined, meaning one pipe carrying sewage and rainwater together. That is 38.5 per cent against 24.3 per cent citywide.
Material tells the same story. Vitrified clay is the single most common sewer main here, 741 of the 1,846 segments. On the blocks from King Edward down to 41st clay rises to 45.6 per cent. Cambie Village is the exception at 35.4 per cent, below the citywide 44.8 per cent, because those blocks have had more main renewal than average.
Now the part that is unique to this address. Council approved the Cambie Corridor Utilities Servicing Plan in 2018, and the work is underway. The West 54th Avenue sewer from Cambie Street to Neal Street is being replaced with a separated, larger capacity system, one pipe for rainwater and one for sewage, along with four green rainwater curb bulges. The City’s stated reason is to cut the risk of localized flooding and of combined sewer overflows into the Fraser River. On the west edge, the Oak Street sewer separation upgrades broke ground in October 2023. Around Columbia Park and Alberta Street the City says the existing combined pipes are simply too small for the housing and jobs the Cambie Corridor Plan allows.
Why that matters to you and not just to an engineer. The City’s own wording is that as it replaces combined systems with separated ones, properties will also need separated systems, and that when separated sewers go into your area you should renew your home’s connection to be part of it. On a Cambie block the question is not whether your old line fails. It is which year the City reaches your street and separation stops being optional.
Cambie Village and the blocks south of King Edward are not the same house
People talk about Cambie as one neighbourhood of old character homes. The assessment roll says otherwise. Take the detached lots on Cambie, Yukon, Alberta, Columbia, Manitoba, Heather and Willow. In the Cambie Village band from 16th to King Edward, 146 lots carry a build year. The single biggest decade is the 1940s at 30.1 per cent, the 1910s are 14.4 per cent, and 32.9 per cent of the band went up before 1940. Stretch it from the 1910s through the 1950s and you have 69.2 per cent of the band. That is a pre-war and immediately post-war street, clay tile and cast iron era.
South of King Edward down to 41st, 161 lots carry a build year and not one is pre-1940. Zero. The 1940s and 1950s alone are 55.3 per cent. Anyone selling you a pre-war character home story on those blocks has not looked.
There is a third group hiding in both bands. 13 per cent of Village lots and 17.4 per cent of the King Edward to 41st lots were built in the 1990s. Polybutylene went into Canadian homes from 1978 to the mid 1990s, and its plastic fittings are known to crack and leak while the pipe still looks fine from the outside. If your house is a nineties rebuild, go and read the pipe in the mechanical room.
What we will not do is tell you what is buried on your lot from a desk. Nothing published records when private drain tile went in here, or what a given house’s stack is made of. We put a camera on it, you watch the monitor, then we price the work.
Six things worth knowing about Cambie drainage
- Separation is coming to your block whether you plan for it or not. The City’s wording is that as combined systems get replaced, properties will also need separated systems, and that when separated sewers go into your area you should renew your home’s connection to be part of it. Cambie is 38.5 per cent combined against 24.3 per cent citywide, so there is more of that ahead here than almost anywhere we work.
- You own the line up to the City’s connection. That is the City’s own sentence, not ours. Everything on your property is yours to maintain, and the City names cracks caused by damage, age or tree roots, and roof and foundation drains wrongly tied into the sanitary line, as how extra water gets into a sewer.
- Clay is still the most common pipe under these streets. 741 of the 1,846 sewer main segments in the Cambie neighbourhood are vitrified clay, and from King Edward to 41st it is 45.6 per cent. Clay cracks at the joint and roots find the crack. Private laterals from the same era are the same material.
- There are thousands of trees over these laterals. The City’s inventory addresses 4,152 public trees to Cambie Street alone, and the side streets are dominated by maples and cherries, 759 Acer and 651 Prunus between King Edward and 41st. The City lists tree roots among the most common causes of a sewer backup.
- For four specific problems the City tells you to call a plumber, not 3-1-1. An overflowing basement fixture, an overflowing stormwater sump, water seeping through basement walls and sewer odour inside the home all send you to a plumber in the City’s own guide. Only a property owner can ask the City to send a crew, and with no sump or cleanout you may have to pull the basement toilet first. City crews will not put it back.
- A plugged street drain is the City’s, not yours. A blocked catch basin or street drain gets reported to the City online. If the water is standing at the curb rather than at your foundation, that is the right first call.
What Vancouver customers say
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Drainage problem on a Cambie block?
Ryan picks up. Live dispatch, and you get a real arrival window on the call. We camera every line before anybody quotes a number, and the footage is yours to keep.
Cambie drainage and plumbing FAQ
There is a good chance of it. Across the Cambie neighbourhood 711 of 1,846 sewer main segments are combined, 38.5 per cent against 24.3 per cent citywide. Cambie Village is lighter at 25.5 per cent and the blocks from King Edward to 41st are heavier at 36.9 per cent. We scope your connection and tell you what is there.
The City says that as combined systems get replaced, properties will also need separated systems, and that when separated sewers are installed in your area you should renew your home’s connection to be part of it. In practice that usually means getting roof and foundation drains off the sanitary line and onto storm.
Yes. Council approved the Cambie Corridor Utilities Servicing Plan in 2018. The West 54th Avenue sewer from Cambie Street to Neal Street is being replaced with a separated, larger capacity system plus four green rainwater curb bulges, and the Oak Street sewer separation upgrades on the west edge broke ground in October 2023. Around Columbia Park and Alberta Street the City says the combined pipes are too small for the growth the corridor plan allows.
It splits at King Edward. In the Village band from 16th to King Edward, 32.9 per cent of the detached lots were built before 1940 and the biggest single decade is the 1940s. South of King Edward down to 41st, not one lot on the roll is pre-1940, and the 1940s and 1950s together are 55.3 per cent.
Worth checking if yours is a nineties rebuild. 13 per cent of the Village lots and 17.4 per cent of the King Edward to 41st lots carry a 1990s build year, and polybutylene went into Canadian homes from 1978 to the mid 1990s. Its plastic fittings are known to crack and leak while the pipe still looks fine.
You are responsible for the sewer lines on your property, up to where they meet the City’s sewer connection. That is the City’s own wording. A licensed plumber can clean and inspect the whole connection from the house out to the main.
The City names three renewal methods. Open trenching, pipe bursting where the existing line is replaced in place, and pipe relining. Which one suits your lot depends on the depth, the route and what is on top of it. The camera work comes first, because the method follows the footage.
A plumber. The City’s own guide sends you to a plumber for an overflowing basement fixture, an overflowing stormwater sump, water seeping through basement walls and sewer odour inside the home. Only a property owner can ask the City to send out a crew, and with no sump or cleanout you may have to remove the basement toilet before it arrives. City crews will not reinstall it.
Roots are on the City’s own list of the most common causes of sewer backup, and its list of how cracks form in pipe. There are 4,152 public trees addressed to Cambie Street, and the side streets from King Edward to 41st carry 759 maples and 651 cherries. We will not tell you which tree is in your line. We will show you on the monitor whether roots are in it.
All of Vancouver, plus Burnaby, New Westminster and the North Shore. Riley Park, Oakridge, Mount Pleasant, South Granville, Marpole and Kerrisdale are the closest to this one and we are in them constantly.
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Water where it should not be?
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