BackflowFiled

Backflow duties for strata councils and property managers

Who the bylaws put the backflow duty on, what a council or manager should hold on file, and how to keep every building's clock in one place.

The bylaws put the backflow duty on the owner or customer of the water service — the CRD's Bylaw 3516 on the “Customer” (s.7.1), Calgary's on the “Customer” (s.39), Toronto's on “every owner” (§851-8D(12)). For a building with several devices and a manager in between, that means three things to hold:

  1. Each building's authority and its clock. They differ — from the notice in the CRD, from the test almost everywhere else — and a portfolio across towns has several.
  2. Proof the report arrived. The CRD requires the report to be “submitted and received” inside 35 days (s.7.2); keep the authority's acknowledgement, not only the sent email.
  3. The file. The CRD requires the customer to keep a file of test results for inspection (s.7.6); the tester keeping one is not the same thing.

A building list goes through the free audit in minutes, and the register keeps every building's date, tester and report status in one place.

Sources: CRD Bylaw 3516; Calgary and Toronto on their pages.

Every city's deadline

Quoted from each authority's own bylaw or form:

Abbotsford · Burnaby · Capital Regional District · Castlegar · Chilliwack · Clearbrook Waterworks District · Coquitlam · Duncan · Enderby · Fort St. John · Kamloops · Kelowna · Mission · New Westminster · Parksville · Penticton · Pitt Meadows · Port Moody · Prince George · Regional District of Nanaimo · Regional District of North Okanagan · Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen · Salmon Arm · Sunshine Coast Regional District · Terrace · Township of Langley · UBC · University Endowment Lands · Vancouver · West Kelowna · Whistler · White Rock · Williams Lake

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