Plumber St James

St James WA 6102, Town of Victoria Park. About 7 km south-east of the Perth CBD.

St James is an almost wholly residential suburb about seven kilometres south-east of the Perth CBD, shared between the Town of Victoria Park and the City of Canning. It was gazetted in 1957 from the northern portion of Bentley, and its housing is largely of that period. For a plumber that means a consistent postwar stock on services around seventy years old, with a small commercial strip along Albany Highway and little else to complicate it.

• Postwar housing of a single eraSt James was gazetted in 1957 and built out around then, so galvanised supply pipe, gate valves and earthenware sewer across the suburb are reaching the end of their life together. The same faults repeat street to street, which usually tells us what we are looking for before we arrive.
• Seventy-year-old supply pipeGalvanised water pipe of that age has narrowed internally with corrosion, and the pressure drop happens slowly enough that people stop noticing it. No tap or filter restores the flow. Replacing the affected run is the only thing that does.
• Mature gardens over old drainageSeventy years of garden growth means established trees close to sewer lines that join in short sections. Root intrusion is the blockage we clear most often in St James, and a camera shows whether the pipe warrants relining or periodic clearing.
• A quiet residential suburb on an arterial edgeSt James is almost entirely housing with Albany Highway along one side, which keeps access direct without the traffic of a commercial strip running through it. That is why we can give a realistic arrival time for an after-hours burst here.