Windsor’s Sewer Master Plan is the City’s long-term strategy for reducing basement sewer backups and modernizing sewer infrastructure. It represents a significant long-term infrastructure investment that will be implemented over several decades.
While that work continues, many neighbourhoods will continue to rely on today’s sewer system. Homeowners living in those areas need practical support, particularly those who have already invested in the City’s recommended sewer backup protection measures and continue to experience basement sewer backups through their plumbing fixtures.
This isn’t about choosing between infrastructure and homeowner protection. Windsor needs both.
These proposals are intended to complement the Sewer Master Plan, not replace it, by strengthening the protection available to homeowners while long-term infrastructure improvements continue.
What Windsor Provides Today
Windsor already has a Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy Program that helps homeowners with the cost of preventative measures, including backwater valves, sump pumps, foundation drain disconnections, and some diagnostic work such as camera inspections and dye testing.
The City recently increased the program’s lifetime maximum to $3,500 per property.
The program provides important support to homeowners, but there may be circumstances where the measures it currently covers are not sufficient for a particular home’s plumbing configuration or level of risk.
This is especially important for homeowners who have already installed recommended protection measures and continue to experience sewer backups.
The proposed changes would build on Windsor’s existing program by addressing two gaps: helping homeowners understand why their existing protection may not have been enough, and providing financial assistance toward a sewage ejector system where a professional assessment determines that is the appropriate solution.
Proposal One: Create a Home Plumbing Assessment Grant
When a homeowner experiences another sewer backup despite having recommended protection measures in place, the next step should not be guesswork.
Windsor already provides some assistance for foundation drain disconnection, dye testing, and camera inspections. These are useful tools, but they serve a different purpose from the proposed Home Plumbing Assessment.
A camera inspection can examine the inside of a sewer or drain line and identify visible conditions such as obstructions or damage.
Dye testing can help determine where particular drains or connections lead.
Toronto Provides a Model
Toronto provides financial assistance for comprehensive Home Plumbing Assessments through its Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy Program.
The assessment examines a home’s underground plumbing, including existing backwater valves, sump pumps and backup power, sanitary and storm services, downspouts, and weeping tiles, and provides recommendations about potential issues and appropriate mitigation measures.
This provides a model Windsor can consider for homeowners who continue to experience sewer backups despite already having recommended protection measures in place.
A Home Plumbing Assessment would look at the property more comprehensively and answer a different question:
Why did this home experience a sewer backup despite the protection already in place, and what should be done to prevent it from happening again?
The purpose is to give homeowners professional advice before they invest thousands of dollars in additional work.
Proposal Two: Expand the Program to Include Sewage Ejector Systems
A traditional backwater valve is designed to prevent sewage from flowing backward into a home when the municipal sewer becomes surcharged. Backwater valves are an important and effective protection measure for many properties, but they may not adequately protect every plumbing configuration.
A backwater valve can only protect plumbing that is properly connected upstream of the valve. In some homes, particularly older homes with more complex plumbing configurations, vulnerable below-grade fixtures may be connected in ways that cannot be adequately protected by a single backwater valve.
In those circumstances, a sewage ejector system may be the most appropriate way to protect below-grade plumbing from municipal sewer surcharge.
A sewage ejector system hydraulically isolates below-grade plumbing from the municipal sewer. Rather than draining directly by gravity, wastewater from those fixtures is collected in a sealed basin and pumped into the building sewer through a protected discharge.
Windsor should make sewage ejector systems eligible for financial assistance through the Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy Program where a qualified professional determines that one is appropriate.
This Is Not a New Concept for Windsor
Sewage ejector systems have already been considered through Windsor’s own Sewer Master Plan work.
During the Sewer Master Plan process in 2018, adding a subsidy for sewage ejector pumps as an alternative to backwater valves was specifically identified as a homeowner protection measure under consideration.
The City’s 2020 Sewer Master Plan work also recognized the role of ejector systems in new construction. Consultants recommended mandatory sewage ejector pumps for new residential development with basements or below-grade living spaces, with an engineering exception where sewer surcharge would not threaten the basement.
Current Windsor development documents also require sewage ejector systems under specified engineering conditions.
The principle is therefore already recognized in Windsor: there are circumstances where hydraulically separating below-grade plumbing from the municipal sewer is an appropriate way to protect a home from sewer surcharge.
The proposed change is to extend that principle to Windsor’s homeowner subsidy program.
London Provides a Model
London already includes sewage ejector systems in its Basement Flooding Grant Program.
Where approved in place of a backwater valve, London provides up to 90 per cent of eligible costs, to a maximum of $6,000, for a sewage ejector and holding tank, including necessary interior plumbing modifications.
Windsor can examine London’s experience and actual installation costs when determining an appropriate level of assistance.
How the Two Proposals Work Together
First, identify the problem. Determine why the existing protection did not prevent the backup.
Second, determine the appropriate solution. Identify whether the home needs plumbing modifications, a sewage ejector system, or another mitigation measure.
Third, help the homeowner implement it. Provide financial assistance toward the recommended solution.
This avoids asking homeowners to spend thousands of dollars trying one measure after another without first understanding why their existing protection was not sufficient.
Learning from Major Sewer Backup Events
Major sewer backup events provide valuable information about how Windsor’s sewer system and homeowner protection measures perform under real-world conditions.
The City should use that information to continually improve its programs and inform implementation of the Sewer Master Plan.
That should include better public reporting following significant sewer backup events, including affected neighbourhoods, sewer system performance, and, where information is available, whether affected homes already had recommended protection measures in place.
The purpose is not to reopen or replace the Sewer Master Plan. It is to ensure a multi-decade infrastructure strategy and the homeowner programs supporting it continue to benefit from real-world experience.
Broader Community Benefits
Reducing basement sewer backups can help protect homeowners’ largest financial investment, strengthen neighbourhood resilience, and reduce the financial and emotional impact of repeated flooding.
It can also have benefits beyond an individual property. Insurers consider claims experience and risk at the neighbourhood level when setting home insurance rates. Reducing the frequency and severity of sewer-backup claims across an area can help reduce pressure on insurance costs and support the long-term insurability of homes in affected neighbourhoods.