Frozen homes leave people homeless: what happens to utility networks and structures
Kyiv • UNN
Oleh Popenko, head of the Union of Utility Service Consumers, spoke about the consequences of multi-apartment buildings freezing and the process of their restoration. Freezing affects heating and water supply networks, making the building uninhabitable and requiring extensive repair work.
The freezing of apartment buildings in winter leads to serious technical damage to the building, which may eventually even become uninhabitable. Oleg Popenko, head of the Union of Utility Service Consumers, told UNN more about the consequences of freezing buildings and how they are restored.
Details
Freezing, first and foremost, affects the heating and water supply networks that ensure the building's vital functions, the expert says. Because of this, the building effectively goes out of service, and extensive repair work is needed to return the building to normal condition.
When heating networks freeze, an apartment building loses its vital functions. Heating networks, water supply networks - they are responsible for the life support system and are effectively lost. These buildings cannot be lived in and require major repairs.
The scope of restoration work depends on what exactly was damaged. In addition, according to the expert, photos showing burst radiators are circulating online.
If the radiators are burst, it will be necessary to replace all radiators in the apartments and replace all heating networks in the corridors. This depends on how much the building has suffered and what scope of work is needed to restore the systems to functionality.
He also emphasized that problems can arise with sewage networks, especially those on upper floors, but the exact condition of the building can only be determined after a technical audit.
Problems are resolved only after the building undergoes a technical audit. It may be that only one or two floors are frozen, while all others are normal. The stories are completely different, and only after a technical inspection will the scope of work be clear.
A separate danger is the freezing of walls and ceilings. Oleg Popenko says that cases have already been recorded in Kyiv where people lost property because of this.
Moisture gets into the slab, freezes, the slab cracks. People wrote to me that the ceiling on the top floor cracked and the apartment was completely covered with snow. You simply lose property because preventive work was not done in a timely manner.
According to Popenko, the building restoration procedure itself is lengthy. All decisions are made through sessions, which drags out the process for months.
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If funding is allocated, conditionally, in March, it will take at least six to eight months to restore one building. And how many such buildings there are is not reported.
Recall
In Kyiv, due to damage to critical infrastructure from the Russian attack, a significant part of residential buildings and other structures were left without supply, and "water was promptly drained from the building systems in these buildings," but this is a standard technical measure at sub-zero temperatures and does not mean a prolonged absence of heat, the Kyiv City State Administration indicated.
As UNN reported, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko convened a commission on TEB and NS due to the difficult situation in the capital. About 400 multi-story buildings remain without heating, and power supply is carried out according to emergency schedules.