Plumber Alfred Cove

Alfred Cove WA 6154, City of Melville. About 9 km south-west of the Perth CBD.

Alfred Cove is a small suburb about nine kilometres south-west of the Perth CBD in the City of Melville, named for the sheltered Swan River cove it sits on. Its foreshore mudflats and seagrass beds are protected habitat for migratory waders, and Tompkins Park occupies much of the river frontage. For a plumber that means a high water table on the low blocks, stormwater that cannot simply be pushed toward the river, and established housing on ageing services.

• A protected foreshore downstream of everythingThe mudflats and seagrass along the Alfred Cove foreshore are protected habitat, so what leaves a property matters. Stormwater and any wash-down here need handling properly rather than being directed at the nearest low point.
• Low ground and a winter water tableThe blocks nearest the cove sit low with groundwater close to the surface through winter. Soak wells there fill quickly and clear slowly, which is a design constraint rather than a blockage to be cleared.
• Established housing on original drainageMuch of the housing here is old enough to be running its first sewer line under a mature garden. Roots into those earthenware joints are the common cause of the blockages we attend in Alfred Cove.
• A small suburb with big recreation groundsTompkins Park and the reserves take up a substantial share of Alfred Cove, and their amenities, irrigation and wash-down facilities are commercial plumbing on a different scale to a house.