Plumber Gwelup

Gwelup WA 6018, City of Stirling. About 12 km north of the Perth CBD.

Gwelup was subdivided in 1898 and 1899 but stayed rural for decades, worked mainly as market gardens on the land around its wetland. The residential suburb arrived in the 1970s and filled in after the freeway was extended to Erindale Road in 1984. The name comes from the Noongar Gwelgannow, meaning to shift position.

• Lake Gwelup and its 75 hectare reserveA 25 hectare wetland sits in the middle of the suburb, and it keeps the water table high in the streets around it. Soak wells there fill faster and clear more slowly through winter, so stormwater and surface drainage is a larger part of our work in Gwelup than in drier parts of Stirling.
• Market garden cottages on North Beach RoadSome of the original cottages from Gwelup's market garden era are still standing and still occupied. Their pipework predates most of the suburb by seventy years or more, and replacing it without damaging the building is careful, staged work rather than a straight swap.
• Modern estates a street awayKarrinyup Waters and The Willows brought two-storey homes with PVC drainage into a suburb of cottages. Those houses rarely have root problems, but their original hot water units, valves and pumps are now reaching the age where they fail.
• Marri and jarrah through the reserveThe reserve is well treed with marri and jarrah, and mature roots find the joints in older drainage on the properties backing onto it. We camera the line to confirm root intrusion before quoting rather than simply jetting and hoping.