Sewer lines cleared and filmed the same day where we can, and the stormwater line inspected as well, because that is the half of the drainage nobody ever looks at.
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Every property has two sets of pipes in the ground. One takes what leaves the house. The other takes what falls on the roof. Almost everybody has had the first one looked at at some point. Almost nobody has ever had the second one looked at at all.
The reason is simply that they fail differently. A sewer blockage announces itself in the least ambiguous way available, and somebody rings a plumber the same morning. A stormwater failure produces a damp patch beside the house after heavy rain, and everybody concludes that it rained heavily.
It is worth taking seriously, particularly on properties where the house has been here a long time and the roof water has been going somewhere for a century. Lines come apart at joints. Sections collapse. A downpipe works loose at the base and discharges straight into the ground against the wall. None of that smells and none of it stops the toilet flushing.
The inspection is exactly the same as for a sewer line. A camera goes down and you see what is there, and for most properties the recording is the first information anybody has ever had about where that line goes.
That is a stormwater question rather than a weather one. Ask for that line to be filmed, not just the sewer.
One backs up into the house on a Sunday and you ring somebody within the hour. The other leaves a damp patch after rain, and it gets attributed to the weather for years.
So people film sewer lines when something goes wrong, and almost nobody films the roof water line. It is half the drainage on the property and it is the half nobody has ever looked at.
That is the whole argument of this page. Not that stormwater fails more often, but that when it does, nothing tells you.
A roof collects far more water in a storm than people picture. On a house of this size it is thousands of litres in an hour, all of it arriving at a handful of downpipes.
That water has to get from the downpipes to a legal discharge point, and on these blocks that is frequently a long underground run through an established garden.
Which means a failure in that run puts a genuinely significant volume into the ground beside the building, repeatedly, every time it rains.
It is one of the most common and least noticed faults on an older property. The downpipe meets the underground line at a joint, and that joint separates.
Once it has, the roof water discharges at the base of the wall instead of into the stormwater system. Everything above ground looks completely normal.
It is worth walking around during actual rain and looking at the bottom of each downpipe. Five minutes in a shower tells you more than any amount of inspection on a dry day.
Water arriving repeatedly against a wall or into the ground beside a footing is what turns into damp, subfloor smell and movement, and on a sloping block it can go on for years before anybody connects it to the drainage.
The symptoms get attributed to the age of the house, which on housing of this era is an easy and usually wrong explanation.
It is worth ruling out before spending money on the consequence rather than the cause.
Same camera, same method, same footage handed over. There is nothing special or more expensive about surveying a roof water line.
The only reason it is rarely done is that nobody asks, because nothing has dramatically failed. It is not a technical limitation.
If we are on the property filming a sewer line, adding the stormwater is a short extension of the same visit.
The joint at the base of a downpipe, a pit that has silted or been packed with leaf litter, a section crushed by something driven over it, and roots at an old joint.
Under the tall canopy on these streets, leaf litter is the most common of those by a long way and it is the easiest to deal with.
Pits are worth clearing on a schedule rather than on appearance, because wet litter packs down and passes almost nothing while still looking serviceable.
Sewer and stormwater are separate systems and a connection between them is not permitted. It occasionally turns up on older properties, made decades ago by somebody who thought it was helpful.
That is worth finding rather than living with, because it puts roof water into the sewer in every storm.
A camera survey of both lines is how it gets found, and it is one of the more useful things an inspection turns up.
Altering a discharge point, connecting to a new one, or changing where roof water leaves the property is a council matter to permit rather than ours to decide.
Repairing an existing line where it lies is ordinary licensed work and does not raise that question at all, which is worth knowing because it affects how a job is scoped.
We will tell you plainly which side of that line a piece of work sits on before quoting it.
Still the largest single cause of what we clear, whatever the packet claims about flushability. They stay intact, they snag, and they hold everything behind them.
Nothing about that is specific to this suburb. It is simply the answer most of the time on the sewer side.
Kitchen fat is the slower version, cooling onto the wall and narrowing the bore a fraction at a time until a line that had been getting worse for a year finally stops.
A first blockage that clears easily does not need filming and we will say so. The third in the same year is the line describing itself.
Clearing the same run repeatedly without ever looking at it is buying the same afternoon over and over, and it is the habit that turns a cheap problem into an expensive one.
Where the camera does find a defect, it also decides the repair, and most open joints can be dealt with from inside rather than by opening a garden of this age.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Through an existing access point where the property has one.
Sewer or stormwater, and the recording is yours either way.
For what a cable alone will not shift.
Position and depth marked, so nobody works from a guess.
What was found and in which system, because that changes what happens next.
Whether the problem shows up any time or only after rain. That single answer decides which system we are looking at.
Through an access point where one exists, with the least disruptive method that will genuinely work.
The line that is causing trouble, and if it is worth it, the one nobody has ever looked at either.
Which system, what is wrong with it, and whether anything further is genuinely worth doing.
Ring and a licensed plumber picks up. We can be moving toward you while you are still talking.
Call 1300 381 569Frequently yes, and frequently on the line nobody thinks about. Roof water leaves through downpipes into a stormwater line, and if that line has failed or a downpipe has come adrift at the base, a large volume of water goes into the ground right beside the building every time it rains. It is not a sewer problem and it does not smell, which is why it goes unnoticed for years.
Because it only misbehaves when it rains, and when it rains everything is wet anyway. A sewer blockage announces itself immediately and unpleasantly. A stormwater failure produces a damp patch that people put down to the weather.
The same way as any other line. A camera goes down it and you see what is actually there: roots, a collapsed section, a joint that has come apart, or in a surprising number of cases a line that simply ends. It is a straightforward inspection.
Wipes lead by a distance, whatever the packet claims. They do not break down, they snag inside the pipe and they collect everything behind them. Fat and hair account for most of the rest.
Yes, while it is still information. A line that is gradually slowing has usually lost fall or is accumulating something, and both cost less to deal with before the morning nothing moves.
Yes, and keep it. On stormwater particularly, it is frequently the first record anybody has ever had of where that line goes and what condition it is in.
Clearing a blocked drain is $150 to $400. A camera inspection is $250 to $450, sewer or stormwater. Jetting is $400 to $700. Locating and marking a defect is $250 to $500, with the written findings included.
Tell us what is happening and whether it only happens after rain. Those two answers decide which of the two systems under the property we are actually dealing with.
Cleared, filmed, and a straight answer about which line the problem is in.
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