Residents left without natural gas saw the service resume following a weekend pipeline explosion.

TransCanada said service was restored to most communities overnight Monday and gas began flowing to the rest by Tuesday afternoon. About 4,000 residents had been affected.

A pipeline explosion in Otterburne, Man. on the weekend left 11 rural communities without natural gas.

After the gas service was restored, Manitoba Hydro crews spent the day going door to door helping people re-light their hot water tanks and furnaces.

As of 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Hydro said crews had completed a majority of door-to-door visits to assist customers. The utility expected to complete commercial visits by the end of Tuesday and rural and urban customers by the end of Wednesday.

Even with gas back in service, it still takes time for homes and farm operations to warm up.

St-Pierre-Jolys homeowner Adolph Unrau said his natural gas supply had only returned in spurts so far Tuesday afternoon, so he still had to wait a while longer for the heat to come back on permanently.

“It came on for about half an hour and then it shut off again,” he said.

Some chicken producers in the region said it will take about six hours for the heat to return to normal.

Chicken producers had worked around the clock to keep their animals alive during the outage.

“We'd be heading out to the fuel tank outside in the gale-force blizzard conditions,” said Jake Wiebe.

Wiebe rented diesel-powered heaters to ensure his 35,000 chickens survived.

“The uncertainty was the question because we knew that these heaters were a short-term fix. They were not a long-term fix, so two to three days we could manage,” he said.

The heater rentals cost him around $500. TransCanada said it will compensate people for their expenses.

Wiebe is also chair of the Manitoba Chicken Producers. He said no chickens died in the province during the outage, based on what he’s heard.

TransCanada said it is working with the Transportation Safety Board and the National Energy Board to determine what caused the pipeline explosion.

On Monday, TransCanada said it could take six to eight weeks to figure out the cause.

- With a report from Jeff Keele and files from The Canadian Press