About 80% of all blocked drains in Australia have one major culprit: tree roots. But in Melbourne’s older suburbs the inner and middle ring areas, where you’ll find old sewer pipes from the 1920s to the 1970s still carrying all the residential sewerage that stat takes on a whole new meaning. Places like Brunswick, Coburg, Fitzroy and Carlton with their ancient clay and terracotta pipes from yesteryear are a recipe for disaster. The way these pipes were laid out, the type of soil they’re in, the age & density of the trees plus the crowded streets all combine to create a perfect storm that’s making for a blocked drain problem that’s anything but minor.
Melbourne’s Drainage Issues are Built Right In, Not Just a Fluke of Fate
Most of Melbourne’s older residential drainage was put in place when engineering standards and materials were a lot more low-tech than they are today. Clay and terracotta were pretty much the only options going. And while they’re usually fine as long as nobody bothers them, over time the joints start to go, the soil shifts a bit and the roots start poking in, they’ll start to weaken. Add tree roots, ground movement and all the other factors taking their toll, and you can see why a blocked drain is practically waiting to happen.
Melbourne’s crazy growth over the last two decades has made the situation a whole lot worse. A whole apartment block or a tightly packed block with lots of houses puts a huge load on the original pipe sizes. The sewer lines were originally designed to handle a single-family home, not a whole bunch of apartments. The pipe has no idea it’s got a new load on, so the consequences start to add up and before long you’ve got a blocked drain on your hands.
Why Melbourne’s Soil is making it Worse?
Melbourne’s clay soil has a bit of a nasty habit of expanding & contracting with the seasons. When it’s dry, it shrinks and when it’s wet, it expands. And down below, your pipes are right in the middle of all this. As the soil moves the pipes shift with it and the joints start to separate. Then the roots find their way in and before you know it you’ve got a pipe that’s all out of whack, it’s just the perfect recipe for blocked drains.
Chemical drain cleaners and plungers are just sticking hasty band aids on the problem, they don’t actually fix anything. They only delay the inevitable, making things a lot worse in the long run. By the time you call in the pros, the damage is already done and fixing it will cost you a small fortune.
The Technology that Changed the Game for Melbourne Plumbers
CCTV drain camera inspections allow plumbers to get a crystal clear view of what’s going on inside a pipe, right as it happens and without having to rip up the garden. You can see exactly where the blockage is, how it got there, what state the pipe is in and whether it’s still structurally sound or on the brink of collapse all before they even start digging in. With all that info on hand, decisions about whether to clear, reline or replace a pipe section are no longer down to guesswork, but a solid, evidence-based decision.
High-pressure water jetting knocks out grease buildup, debris and root masses more effectively than those old mechanical snake things. The water jet cleans the whole pipe from top to bottom, not just poking a hole in the middle of a blockage. Where roots have gotten into a clay pipe, jetting will clear them out but it won’t patch up the crack that let them in. That’s where CIPP pipe relining (Cured-in-Place Pipe) comes in. By creating a new inner pipe surface inside the old one, it fixes the underlying damage. For Melbourne homeowners with pipes running under driveways, under the garden or through period-style floors, the fact that it’s all done without digging is a major plus, saving you a whole heap of cash otherwise sunk into excavation.
Common Mistakes Melbourne Homeowners Keep Making
There are some specific causes of blocked drains Melbourne that tend to get downplayed, not because they’re obscure but because they seem like such everyday things.
- Kitchen Grease: When you pour cooking oils and fats down the sink they cool down and solidify on the pipe walls just a few metres from the drain outlet. Over time, when you combine them with all the leftover food bits, this stuff just builds up and gets harder and harder until it blocks the pipe and doesn’t easily budge.
- Wet Wipes: These do not break down, no matter what the packaging claims. Yarra Valley Water estimates it hauls out nearly 14 tonnes of wet wipes and similar stuff from Melbourne’s sewer system every single week. Each time you chuck something like that down the toilet you’re adding to that load.
- Foreign Objects in Toilets: This usually happens in houses with young kids, and involves things getting pushed past the bend in the pipe and then getting stuck. If you then try to plunge them further down the drain, what you’ve got is a problem that’s now a whole lot harder to deal with.
When Things Go Wrong?
If it’s just one basin that’s slow draining then you can probably wait for a scheduled appointment. But if multiple fixtures are draining slowly at the same time, or you’ve got water coming up from the floor waste, or the smell of sewage rising from the drains inside the house then you need to get someone in right away. This is a main sewer line problem and it requires some serious emergency plumbing attention.
A blocked drain that causes water to back up through two or more fixtures at the same time suggests a problem back at the point where all the individual drain lines feed into the main sewer. That’s an emergency, plain and simple. So if you find yourself in a situation like that, you’re going to want to get a plumber out to you ASAP.
