Plumber Noranda

Noranda WA 6062, City of Bayswater. About 11 km north-east of the Perth CBD.

Noranda is a suburb about eleven kilometres north-east of the Perth CBD in the City of Bayswater, named in 1977 and developed largely as family housing from that period. It holds Lightning Swamp Bushland and Lightning Park, several schools and a number of junior sporting clubs. For a plumber the two practical points are the build era, which means fittings rather than pipework at end of life, and the wetland in the middle of the suburb, which keeps groundwater high in the streets nearest it.

• Lightning Swamp Bushland in the suburbThe wetland keeps the water table high in the streets around it, so soak wells on those blocks fill faster and clear more slowly through winter. Stormwater there has to be sized for the ground rather than to a standard detail, while blocks further from the swamp drain normally.
• Housing built from the late 1970sNoranda went up over a relatively short period, so the hot water units, isolation valves and tapware installed with the houses are failing on much the same timetable. The supply pipe generally still has life in it, which is why most of our work here is upgrading rather than replumbing.
• Mature bushland trees near drainageThe retained bushland and the established street plantings mean substantial trees close to sewer lines on plenty of properties. Root intrusion into older joints is the most common blockage we clear on the blocks adjoining the reserve.
• A strong junior sporting communityThe football, cricket and netball clubs based here run change rooms and amenity blocks at an intensity no household matches, and they are busiest exactly when people want them working. That work is booked around fixtures and training rather than attended mid-season.