Plumber Mount Richon

Mount Richon WA 6112, City of Armadale. About 30 km south-east of the Perth CBD.

Mount Richon occupies the western slope of the Darling Range about thirty kilometres south-east of the Perth CBD in the City of Armadale, bounded by the South Western Highway to the west and Albany Highway and Bungendore Park to the east. The escarpment here was worked for shale and granite in the brickworks era, so the ground is clay and rock rather than sand. For a plumber that changes everything about excavation, and the slope decides where water ends up.

• Clay and shale rather than sandSoil on this slope holds water instead of letting it through, so soak wells that would drain freely on the sand plain perform poorly here. Stormwater on a Mount Richon block usually needs somewhere to go rather than somewhere to soak.
• Rock close to the surfaceThe escarpment was quarried here for a reason, and trenching for a water line, a sewer repair or drainage regularly strikes rock at shallow depth. That is the main difference between a quote here and one down on the flat.
• Blocks that fall away down the slopeOn a Mount Richon hillside a leaking line or a failed drain surfaces well below the break. Locating the source properly is the difference between one excavation and several down a terraced garden.
• Clay ground that moves with the seasonsReactive clay swells in winter and shrinks in summer, and that movement is hard on rigid drainage. Cracked and displaced joints in older sewer lines here are often ground movement rather than roots, and the repair is different.