Plumber Safety Bay

Safety Bay WA 6169, City of Rockingham. About 48 km south-south-west of the Perth CBD.

Safety Bay sits on the north shore of Warnbro Sound about forty-eight kilometres south-south-west of the Perth CBD in the City of Rockingham, named by Surveyor-General Roe in 1837 for the anchorage it offered. It grew as a holiday settlement before becoming permanent housing. For a plumber that means houses extended piecemeal from beach shacks, plumbing added in stages over decades, salt corrosion on anything exposed, and shallow coastal ground.

• Shacks extended a room at a timePlenty of Safety Bay houses started small and grew in stages, with plumbing added to each time. Waste lines run where it suited whoever did the last extension, so we camera and locate before quoting rather than assuming a conventional layout.
• Salt air on everything exposedExternal tapware, fittings and hot water units here corrode far faster than inland. Where a unit is sited and how it is protected decides whether it reaches its full service life or half of it.
• Shallow ground close to the SoundThe low blocks near the water hold groundwater close to the surface and have limited fall for drainage. Soakage there performs poorly in the wet season, which is a design constraint rather than a blockage.
• Mixed pipe materials in one houseBecause the extensions happened across decades, a single Safety Bay house can carry two or three generations of pipework joined together. Those junctions are where we most often find the actual fault.