Hamilton · Ontario

Basement flooding in Hamilton: the smallest grant, and the only published prices

Hamilton pays the least of the four cities on this site — $2,000, against Mississauga’s $7,500 — and publishes by some distance the most useful document in Canadian municipal flood-protection writing.

It lists, by name, what each of its five pre-qualified contractors charges to assess and fit a backwater valve. That is a real quoted price for a real device from a real firm, which is something this entire vertical otherwise does not have.

The only measured installed price in this vertical

Five named firms, one city, one device, published by the municipality that pre-qualified them: $1,292 to $1,562 plus HST for an assessment and a mainline backwater valve, across five pre-qualified contractors. The adapt-a-valve variant runs from $1,292 to $2,505 plus HST across the same five firms, and the adapt-a-valve requires City pre-approval.

On top of that the City publishes a $291 building permit fee and downspout disconnection at $75 + HST per downspout.

Two things are worth saying plainly about this table, because the rest of the category would not say either.

First, the spread. The dearest mainline installation on the City’s own approved list is about 21 per cent above the lowest, for the same work, from firms the same City pre-qualified. Anybody telling you there is a going rate for this is guessing.

Second, the sample. Five companies in one city is five companies in one city. It is not a Canadian average and we do not present it as one, which is the whole difference between this page and the pages that publish national cost tables assembled from nothing. Why we refuse to do that.

The contractor rule that costs you three quarters of the grant

Hamilton’s grant has a structure none of the other three cities use, and it is the single most consequential thing on this page.

Choose a contractor from the City’s pre-qualified list and you are eligible for the full $2,000. Choose your own and you are eligible for $500 for a backwater valve installation.

That is a difference of $1,500 for the same device, decided entirely by which company holds the wrench. Given that the City also publishes what those five firms charge, a homeowner in Hamilton has more information available before committing than a homeowner anywhere else on this site — and more to lose by not using it.

The City is careful to note that there is no contract between the contractor and the City under this programme: any agreement is a private contract between you and the firm, and disputes go to the contractor first. Pre-qualified means pre-qualified, not guaranteed, and this site does not recommend any of them.

Eligibility, the 2012 line, and the loan

Hamilton’s conditions include one that none of the other three cities apply in the same form.

Your home must have been built before 1 January 2012. The reasoning is the same as Ottawa’s note that valves became mandatory in new sanitary construction from 2012: newer houses are presumed to have one already, so the grant is aimed at the stock that does not.

Single-family residential, with a basement, connected to the City sewer system, property taxes up to date, and not currently in the process of adding a secondary dwelling unit.

The grant is paid to the property owner, who is responsible for paying the contractor. You are not being billed through the City.

And if the eligible work exceeds the grant, Hamilton runs a separate loan programme of up to $2,000 for eligible costs on top. Given the published contractor prices, a mainline valve plus a permit plus a couple of downspouts lands close enough to the $2,000 ceiling that the loan is not theoretical.

One useful detail: if you have had a backwater valve grant before and some of the $2,000 remains against the property, the remainder can still be put towards disconnecting downspouts.

How Hamilton compares with the other three

Hamilton’s maximum of $2,000 puts it last of the four Ontario municipalities on this site. The highest of the other three is Mississauga at $7,500; the lowest is Ottawa at $3,000.

Hamilton pays the least and publishes the most. It is the only city of the four that tells you in advance what the work costs, and the only one where your choice of contractor changes the grant by three quarters. In information terms it is the most fully documented programme here.

What none of this does for you

Every dollar on this page buys a device that reduces the chance of water arriving. None of it pays for the damage if it arrives anyway, and in Canada that is a separate purchase that a standard policy does not include.

So the complete answer for a Hamilton homeowner is both: the device, part-funded by the City, and the sewer backup endorsement, bought from your insurer. Doing one and not the other is a half-measure in either direction.

And if water is in the building now, the clock is Health Canada’s rather than your insurer’s: mould begins to grow in an area with excessive moisture within 48 hours. Your policy separately “requires you to act to limit any further damage”. What that means in practice is on our duty to mitigate page.

Questions people actually ask

Where to read next

• What a sewer backup actually is
• The endorsement the devices do not replace
• What restoration work costs, and whose figures those are
• Toronto’s programme
• Mississauga’s programme
• Ottawa’s programme