By Zenab Bagha
Extra heavy snowfalls this winter have caused slippery sidewalks and icy roofs, leaving snow removal companies scrambling to clean up the mess.
“We’ve been pretty busy all winter…we worked around the clock, especially during the first snowstorm (in mid-December when Ottawa received around 30 cm of snow).
“In those five days, our guys got only between five and 18 hours of sleep,” says Centretown Road Service snow-plowing manager, Yvan Grenier.
According to Environment Canada the average annual snowfall in Ottawa is around 222 cm.
So far Ottawa has received around 235 cm of snow this winter, with more still expected .
Like most snow-clearing and removal businesses in the area, Centretown Road Service has noticed a sharp increase this winter in demand for its snow-plowing and snow-removal services.
“Our phone lines were jammed. I’d say we had about 200 calls a day from people who wanted us to fix or clear the snow and ice from their roofs. We had four incoming phone lines, faxes, e-mails and voicemail,” says Don Mann, vice-president of J.D. Sanderson Roofing Inc. on Catherine Street.
This winter has been especially damaging for homeowners because of an extra accumulation of ice on the roofs of buildings, he says.
“This winter has been bad because we’ve had a lot more snow than usual. It has also been really cold, so when people turn on the heating indoors the water that collects on the roofs freezes and creates icicles.”
Mann says most of the calls to his company were from Centretown residents concerned about leaky roofs.
“We cleaned about 800 roofs this winter. That’s unusual because it’s a lot more than normal. In an average winter we might clean between 40 to 50 roofs,” he says.
It’s been a similar story for Primrose Cartage and Excavating Ltd., a snow removal company on Rochester Street.
“We had five times as many calls as last year, but we couldn’t take them all, because we only have so many guys (working for us), and they can only work so many hours,” says Reg Stobo, the company’s owner and president.
According to Mann, the shortage of skilled workers coupled with the increase in demand meant some calls went unanswered.
“We hired everyone we could find who was trained. But we were definitely short-staffed, because other roofers were also looking for workers,” says Mann.
“The problem is, everybody calls about their snow at the same time. They all want it removed at the same time,” says Stobo.
According to Stobo, the demand was further heightened by the failure of several start-up snow-removal companies.
These “fly-by-night operations” bailed out on their clients early on in the winter, forcing more established companies to deal with more than their share of the workload.
“These people saw that we didn’t have a lot of snow last year and they took a gamble. They thought the snow business was easy money.
“But this year we had more snow, and when they saw the demand, they realized they couldn’t cope with it, and the customers suffered,” says Stobo.
Still, Grenier says on the whole this winter has been good for business.
His company, Centretown Road Service gained 15 new commercial clients.
But he adds it has been hard on his workers.
“More snow just means more work for the guys, more phone calls and more headaches.”