Old Man Winter took a toll on watermains in North York and Scarborough this week.
Frigid temperatures caused several watermains across Toronto to break, with most of the problems occurring in North York. Scarborough had more than its fair share of breaks as well.
"The cold weather, absolutely, the cold weather does have an impact," said Joe Di Leo, manager of operations and maintenance with Toronto Water.
"(Wednesday), we did go out (to repair) a few breaks, quite a few more than usual. The cold weather, the change in temperatures is what causes it."
North York took the brunt of the cold snap with "eight or nine" watermains bursting on Wednesday and another five on Thursday, said Di Leo, who works in the North York area.
Although he doesn't work in Scarborough, he is aware of "four or five" watermain breaks on Wednesday. He wasn't sure how many broke in Scarborough Thursday.
Di Leo wasn't aware of any of the breaks causing major problems.
Di Leo blamed the age of the pipes, the type of materials used and the soil conditions for the broken watermains.
As a result, expect more breaks to come.
"Everything with age, they break a little easier, like a car or anything else," he said.
"Nothing much can be done to prevent it. Just as the infrastructure ages, we have to replace it. We can expect more. We are going to keep getting them for the winter."
This isn't the first time the issue of the city's aging and crumbling infrastructure has been raised.
In November 2006, for example, a watermain rupture at Midland and Sheppard avenues in Scarborough prompted critics to accuse the provincial government of ignoring the growing problem.
"I'm sure you're aware that several watermains burst last week in the GTA and a huge problem occurred this week in Scarborough," then-Conservative environment critic Laurie Scott said in the legislature.
She accused the Liberals of dragging their heels on developing regulations regarding aging water pipes.
Domenic Primucci, vice-president of Pizza Nova, was also upset because his company lost 20,000 customer orders when the Scarborough watermain break flooded a nearby Bell Canada building and knocked out telephone service to 9,000 customers.
"The city is crumbling beneath us," he said at the time.