First Onsite is a full-service disaster recovery and property restoration compnay providing end-to-end support to its clients including responding to property damage caused by winter-related weather. Lloydminster branch owner Travis Stieb offers some preventative tips for residential and commercial property owners in the area with the approach of colder temperatures. Supplied Photo
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure to avoid weather-related property damage from snow storms, extreme freezing and high winds this winter.
That’s the belief of First Onsite Property Restoration in Lloydminster, which is sharing some cost-saving tips with readers on how to protect their property from common winter damage such as frozen pipes, ice damming and fires.
“For businesses, one of these insurance claims can cost you money both in building damage and business interruption,” said Travis Stieb, director of commercial operations for Western Canada.
First Onsite is a full-service disaster recovery and property restoration enterprise providing end-to-end support to its clients across North America.
According to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc., Canada has seen insured losses exceeding $3 billion for weather-related events in 2023 with the potential destruction of winter set to start.
Stieb recommends local property owners check their eavestroughs on all types of buildings to make sure they are not obstructed.
“That can help with any possibility of ice damming. If it’s obstructed, that can actually make it worse,” he said.
He also advises homeowners and property managers to make sure their furnaces and boilers and anything that creates heat for their buildings are in good repair.
“Sometimes you don’t really rely on them too heavily until it gets really cold and then you find out something isn’t working. That’s not really a good time to figure that out because then pipes freeze and stuff,” cautioned Stieb.
Fires in the winter are also an issue whether they are caused by a heating system or space heaters and devices like that.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada recommends homeowners install smoke and carbon monoxide alarms on each level of their home and regularly test them and make sure wood stoves are in good working order.
They also recommend cleaning or replacing furnace air filters each month and keeping snow away from gas meters, gas appliance vents, exhaust vents and basement windows.
Stieb says renovations can be another potential problem in winter and things have changed.
“You just need to make sure there’s isn’t a place for wind to get in then freeze a pipe,” he said.
In other words, it’s good practice to check and inspect building insulation and routinely check property during cold spells.
Another tip says Stieb is to check where there’s plumbing on exterior walls — to make sure that there isn’t the ability for them to freeze.
“That’s where we see a lot of the claims caused by frozen pipes then flooding a building,” he said.
In a national 2023 survey conducted for First Onsite about weather-related events, Albertans led the country in terms of winter worries, closely mirrored by Saskatchewan residents.
Winter storms, extreme freezing, adequacy of insurance coverage and personal and family safety are what concern property owners the most in the two provinces.
While the Weather Network is forecasting a mild winter in Alberta and Saskatchewan with El Niño being a major contributing factor, no one knows for sure what this winter will look like.
“With El Niño that they’re forecasting; that can cause its own ups and downs too,” said Stieb.
“Even though they say it’s going to be warmer, it could also have a lot of storms. You don’t what’s going to happen.”
The Farmers’ Almanac Winter, 2024, however, is calling for a traditional winter with very cold temperatures in Alberta.
When disaster strikes in winter, First Onsite deals with insurers directly with property managers and direct to clients.
“On the residential end, we also deal with a lot of insurers,” said Stieb.
First Onsite will be ready to respond locally and across Western Canada with Stieb leading a dedicated team for large commercial and business losses as well.
“Typically, a large loss is not a house, it’s a hospital that’s had a huge chunk flooded or a retail store like Canadian Tire or Walmart that’s had a fire throughout,” explained Stieb.
“My team is specialized in mobilizing across Western Canada to those large losses. We have a huge team in the U.S. and Puerto Rica, basically worldwide.”
The Lloydminster First Onsite branch is currently running a team of about 25 employees with Stieb describing business as steady.
“It’s been a relatively moderate year as far as weather—no major weather events yet,” he said.
