Residents have been concerned that adding new apartment buildings wil affect the water pressure to their home. We asked a City engineer to comment and the following is his response.
Infill development such as apartment construction will not affect water pressures in local neighbourhoods.
Local watermain sizing is driven by fire suppression requirements. Normal domestic water usage is very low compared to the system capacity needed to fight a fire. As such, the incremental domestic demand that is added to local watermain networks as a result of infill and intensification will have no impact on existing levels of service.
There is a process in place to review all development applications to ensure that adequate fire capacity is available. In some areas, local watermain upgrades may be needed to support intensification, but this would be related to new fire requirements that exceed existing fire requirements.
For more information about the City’s Water, Purification, and distribution visit Ottawa.ca.
