Plumber Connolly

Connolly WA 6027, City of Joondalup. About 25 km north of the Perth CBD.

Connolly is a northern suburb in the City of Joondalup, adjacent to the Joondalup city centre and bounded by Shenton Avenue, the Mitchell Freeway, Hodges Drive and Marmion Avenue. It was built in the late 1980s as a golf course estate, with the homes bordering the course generally larger than those on the edges of the suburb. It was named after John Connolly, who held land in the area in 1838. Prairie Dunes Place has run an annual Christmas lights display since 1999, raising funds for the Association for the Blind WA.

• Built as a golf course estateConnolly was laid out around the course in the late 1980s rather than on a standard grid, so water and sewer runs follow irregular boundaries and are often longer and less direct than on a conventional block. Locating a blockage here is camera work rather than guesswork, and digging speculatively gets expensive.
• Larger homes bordering the fairwaysThe houses backing the course are generally bigger, with more bathrooms and higher hot water demand than the builder's standard connection was sized for. Poor pressure in those homes is usually the water service rather than the tapware, and replacing fittings will not fix it.
• A course requiring substantial irrigationA golf course alongside residential streets runs reticulation and drainage on a scale no garden does. The club's irrigation, amenities and clubhouse facilities are commercial work, scheduled around play rather than attended during it.
• Housing from the late 1980sConnolly went up over a short period in the late 1980s, so first-generation fittings, hot water units and isolation valves across the suburb are failing at much the same time. That is why a fault in one street tends to appear in the next within a year or two.