Shared walls, separate pipes (usually)
Semi-detached homes in Dorset Park, Kennedy Park and around Eglinton East were mostly built with each half on its own water service and building drain. A few older pairs, though, share a single sewer lateral that splits under the front yard. When your neighbour's toilet flush shows up as a gurgle in your basement drain, that is our first suspicion.
Calls we take in semis
- Main drain clogs where the camera shows the blockage past the split in a shared lateral
- Leaks inside the party wall from a supply line feeding the second-floor bathroom
- Water heaters squeezed into a narrow utility room with a tight venting run
- Stacked bathrooms where a shower drain leak stains the kitchen ceiling below
How we trace a leak in a narrow house
- Shut the fixture stops one at a time and watch the meter's low-flow dial.
- Check the ceiling below the bath with a moisture meter, marking the wet outline in pencil.
- Open the smallest access hole that reaches the wet spot, normally in the ceiling, not the tile.
- Repair the drain or supply, pressure-test, then leave the opening for you to close once it stays dry.
Neighbour note: If a camera run finds a shared lateral, we explain it to both owners before any digging. The repair cost on shared pipe is a conversation for the two of you.
Water heater swaps in tight rooms
Semis often have the tank tucked under the stairs. We measure the doorway, the vent path and the clearance to the furnace before ordering, because a taller replacement tank sometimes will not fit where the old one stood. A power-vented model can solve a venting problem but needs an outlet nearby.