Homes and streets of Scarborough City Centre
Scarborough City Centre is the area around Scarborough Town Centre and the Civic Centre, near McCowan Road and Highway 401. Over the last twenty-five years it has grown into a cluster of high-rise condominium towers, with more under construction as the Line 2 subway extension takes shape. A few older townhouse complexes and rental towers sit around the edges.
Most residents here live in units of a few hundred to a thousand square feet, many stacked dozens of floors high, sharing risers and drains with the neighbours above and below.
Common plumbing issues here
Condo plumbing problems tend to be inside the unit, small in scale, and important to catch early because water travels downward.
- Leaking supply lines under kitchen and bathroom sinks
- Toilet flappers and fill valves that run constantly
- Slow kitchen drains in small galley kitchens
- Shower cartridges that drip or deliver uneven temperature
- Dishwasher and washing machine connections that weep
A drip in a house might stain a basement floor. A drip in a condo can soak the ceiling of the suite below and bring in the property manager, the neighbour and two insurance companies. Most of these jobs are simple fixes, but they are worth doing promptly. Braided steel supply hoses, for example, have a working life, and replacing them every several years is cheap insurance.
Local water and sewer notes
In a tower, water pressure is managed by booster pumps and pressure-reducing valves. If pressure in your unit suddenly drops or spikes, the cause may be in the building's system, and building management should hear about it first. Each unit usually has a pair of isolation valves of its own, typically tucked behind a removable hatch near the bathroom or in the laundry closet. Know where yours are before you need them.
Drains in towers run into shared vertical stacks. Grease poured down a kitchen sink on the twentieth floor can contribute to a blockage that backs up into a unit on the fourth. Building-wide stack cleaning is a management job, but what goes down your own drain is up to you.
Jobs we handle in the area
- Emergency plumbing for leaks that threaten the unit below
- Water pressure problems inside individual suites
- Faucet repair and cartridge replacement
- Toilet repair
- Dishwasher installation
Our condo plumbing tips cover what is yours to look after and what belongs to the corporation. It is a short read and useful for any first-time condo owner.
Nearby zones
City Centre is surrounded by low-rise neighbourhoods. Bendale lies to the south, Woburn to the east and Dorset Park to the west. Further east, beyond Scarborough's boundary, is Pickering, which we also serve.