Plumber Crawley

Crawley WA 6009, City of Perth. About 6 km west of the Perth CBD.

Crawley sits about six kilometres west of the Perth CBD within the City of Perth, on the north bank of the Swan River at Matilda Bay. It is home to the University of Western Australia, the state's oldest university, along with several residential colleges. The Crawley Edge Boatshed dates from the early 1930s, the Royal Perth Yacht Club moved to Pelican Point in 1953, and the bay served as a flying boat base during the Second World War. The median age in Crawley is 24.

• University colleges and student accommodationSt Catherine's, St George's and the other residential colleges run shared bathrooms and communal hot water at an intensity no household matches. Tapware wears out faster, drainage carries far more, and a single blockage takes out amenities for dozens of residents at once.
• Low riverside ground at Matilda Bay and Pelican PointMuch of Crawley sits low and close to the Swan River, so groundwater is high and drainage runs have little fall to work with. Stormwater on those blocks has to be designed for the ground rather than to a standard detail, and basement areas depend on pumped drainage.
• A median age of 24Crawley's population is overwhelmingly students and university staff, most of them renting, and a share house runs its hot water and drainage far harder than the family home it was plumbed for. Units fail early here as a result, and the repair has to be quoted in writing for an agent before it can be approved.
• Institutional buildings that cannot closeThe university, the colleges and the yacht club all operate to fixed timetables, so plumbing work happens around lectures, terms and events. We schedule it rather than arriving and hoping, which is the difference between a repair and a disruption.