Plumber South Lake

South Lake WA 6164, City of Cockburn. About 22 km south of the Perth CBD.

South Lake sits about twenty-two kilometres south of the Perth CBD in the City of Cockburn, bounded by the freight rail line, the Kwinana Freeway, Berrigan Drive and North Lake Road. It was established in the early 1980s and built largely by one project home builder. For a plumber that uniformity is the useful fact: pipework and fixtures across the suburb are the same age and fail in the same order, and the leisure centre adds a commercial workload.

• A suburb built to one specificationBecause South Lake went up in a short period under one builder, a street tends to share the same pipework, drainage and fixtures. When we see a particular failure in one house here, the neighbours are usually a year or two behind it.
• Eighties pipework at replacement ageHouses of this vintage are at the point where original pipe stops failing once and starts failing repeatedly. Pressure drops and recurring pinhole leaks in a South Lake house point at the pipework rather than the fitting on the end of it.
• Forty years of garden over the drainageMature trees and shrubs now sit over the original earthenware sewer lines. Roots into those joints are the most common reason we are called to a South Lake house, and clearing them is a holding measure rather than a repair.
• A leisure centre with pool plantThe leisure centre here runs pools, plant and change-room amenities on a commercial scale, with backflow prevention obligations attached. Those are scheduled maintenance items, not things to deal with after a failure closes a facility.