Plumber Winthrop

Winthrop WA 6150, City of Melville. About 14 km south of the Perth CBD.

Winthrop lies about fourteen kilometres south of the Perth CBD in the City of Melville, bounded by Leach Highway, Murdoch Drive, North Lake Road and Somerville Boulevard. It was a University of Western Australia pine plantation until the blocks were released from the late 1970s, and the whole suburb was built over about a decade. For a plumber that uniformity is the useful fact: the pipework, drainage and fixtures here are all of an age and fail in the same order.

• A whole suburb built in one decadeBecause Winthrop went from plantation to finished suburb in about ten years, the pipework and fixtures across it are much the same age. When a particular failure shows up in one house here, the surrounding streets are usually not far behind.
• Pine plantation groundThe sandy plantation soil drains well, so soakage generally works in Winthrop. That makes a persistent wet patch more likely to be water escaping a line than a groundwater problem, and worth locating rather than living with.
• Remnant pines and established gardensScattered original pines and forty years of garden growth put substantial root systems near older drainage. Roots into those joints are a common cause of the blockages we clear here, and clearing is a holding measure rather than a fix.
• Eighties housing at replacement ageHouses of this vintage are at the point where hot water units, cisterns and tapware are all due, and where the drainage is worth a camera before anyone prices a repair on it.