Water in the wrong place? Here is what happens next
Ring us, or send the form, and a licensed plumber comes out at no charge.
He works out on site what has actually failed — and with drainage it is usually one of four things. Then you get a written price before anything starts, with no hidden costs in it. You are not committed to anything by asking, and if you would rather not go ahead, you owe nothing.
Why Como drainage gives trouble
Como is old. The suburb was subdivided in 1905 as the Como Estate, and the big building years ran through the 1950s and 1960s. Drainage that went in with those houses has been underground for half a century or more. Nothing buried in sand stays the way it was installed that long.
But the age of the houses is only half the story. The bigger factor is what has happened to the blocks since.
At the last census, only about a third of Como's occupied dwellings were separate houses. More than half were semi-detached homes, townhouses or villas. Como has been subdivided, again and again, and subdivision is where drainage quietly comes unstuck.
Here is the mechanism. The original 1950s house had a roof of a certain size, and someone put in soakwells to match it. Then the block was split, or a rear villa went up, or the back half became a second dwelling. Suddenly there is far more roof and far more paving on the same piece of ground — but very often the same holes underneath, doing the same job they were sized for decades ago.
Roof area went up. The soakwells did not. That is the single most common reason a Como yard floods, and it is not a fault you can see from the surface. More on backyard flooding in Como
Where the water is meant to go
The City of South Perth requires all stormwater falling on a site to be collected, contained and disposed of on that site — whatever the intensity of the storm, whatever the duration. You cannot push runoff onto the street, the verge or a neighbour's block.
That rule is why soakwells exist here. Perth sits on sand, and sand drains. A soakwell is a buried chamber, concrete or plastic, that takes water off the roof and paving and lets it soak away into that sand rather than run off the property.
The council also puts numbers on it. For minor additions on a property with no existing private drainage connection, the required soakwell volume is at least 0.02 cubic metres for every square metre of impervious area being drained. A 100 square metre roof addition needs at least two cubic metres of soakwell underneath it. That is a real figure you can hold a drainage system against, and it is how we tell you whether yours was ever big enough.
One more thing worth knowing: the City divides its area into eight drainage precincts, and the requirements and approved disposal methods are not the same in all of them. Where your property sits changes the answer.
The four ways a soakwell fails
Almost every drainage job in Como is one of these.
It has silted up
Sand, leaf litter and roof grit wash into the well over years until there is more sand in it than air. The chamber is still there and still intact — it simply has no room left to hold water. Common on older systems that have never been touched.
It has cracked or collapsed
Concrete soakwells do not last forever. The lid cracks under a vehicle, the walls fail, or tree roots find their way in and break the chamber apart. The ground above then loses its support, which is why sunken paving is such a reliable clue. Collapsed soakwell repairs
The pipe has failed
The run between the downpipe and the soakwell blocks, cracks, gets crushed or pulls apart at a joint. Water never reaches the well at all — it comes out at the break instead, under your lawn or paving. Stormwater drain repairs
It was never big enough
No fault at all, just arithmetic. The system was sized for a smaller roof than the one now draining into it. This is the Como classic, and it is what subdivision does.
Which one you have changes the job completely, and they are not distinguishable from the surface. Working that out is the first thing we do.
What we do in Como
Soakwells and stormwater
New soakwells, replacements, and stormwater drainage sorted out properly rather than patched. The main job this site is about. Soakwells and stormwater
Blocked drains
Stormwater grates backing up, downpipes overflowing at the top, drains that take far too long to clear. Blocked drains
Leak detection
Finding the break in a buried line without opening up the whole yard looking for it. Leak detection
Emergency plumbing
Urgent drainage work brought forward inside our hours, Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 4:00pm. Emergency plumbing
Commercial plumbing
Strata blocks, villa groups, unit developments and commercial premises — common in a suburb built as densely as Como. Commercial plumbing
The jobs Como rings about most
Soakwell replacement
— when the old well is past repairing and a new one has to go in, sized to the roof it actually drains.
Blocked stormwater drains
— water backing up at the grate, or a downpipe overflowing at the top instead of draining away.
Collapsed soakwell repair
— sinking paving, a soft patch in the lawn, a cracked concrete lid.
Stormwater drain repairs
— a cracked, root-damaged or misaligned pipe between the downpipe and the well.
Backyard flooding
— water pooling in the yard or sitting against the house after winter rain.
Why Como calls us
A licensed plumber does the work
Plumbing licence 8396. Drainage is plumbing work, and it is done by the licence holder rather than handed to someone else.
$0 call-out and a free quote
We do not charge to turn up and look. You get the price in writing before any work starts, and if you decide against it you owe nothing.
Transparent pricing, no hidden costs
The written quote is the price. Nothing appears at the end that was not on it at the start.
Close by
We are based in Leeming and we work this side of the river every day. Como is not a special trip.
We will tell you when it is the smaller job
If the well is sound and the problem is a silted chamber or one broken length of pipe, that is a much cheaper job than a replacement, and we will say so. We would rather do the smaller job than sell you the bigger one.
Where we work
Como is the middle of our patch for this work, and we cover the suburbs around it — South Perth, Manning, Karawara, Salter Point, Waterford, Kensington, Victoria Park, Bentley, Wilson and Applecross.
- South PerthWA
- ManningWA
- KarawaraWA
- Salter PointWA
- WaterfordWA
- KensingtonWA
- Victoria ParkWA
- BentleyWA
- WilsonWA
- ApplecrossWA
If you are just outside that ring, ring anyway. It costs nothing to ask. See all service areas
Common questions
How much does it cost to install a soakwell?
It depends on how many wells the roof area needs, what size they have to be, how deep they go, how far the pipe run is, and how hard the access is for getting material in and spoil out. Those five things move the price far more than anything else. We do not quote drainage sight unseen — a licensed plumber comes out at no charge, looks at the site, and leaves you with a written price with no hidden costs in it.
How deep are soakwells buried?
Deep enough that the top of the chamber sits below the finished surface with cover over it, and deep enough to reach ground that will actually take the water. The exact depth depends on the size of the well, what the ground is like at that spot and how high the water table sits — which near the Swan and Canning foreshores is not the same as it is up on the higher parts of the suburb. Depth is one of the things worked out on site, not from a table.
Are plastic soakwells any good?
Yes, used properly. Modern plastic wells are light, they go in faster, they do not crack the way concrete does, and they come in shapes that suit tight access. Concrete has the advantage where the well has to take load above it. Neither is automatically the right answer — it depends on the volume you need, the access to the spot, and whether anything will be driven or built over it. We will tell you which suits your block and why.
Does Bunnings sell soakwells?
They do, and people ask us this a lot. Buying the chamber is the easy part. The work is sizing the system to the roof area it has to drain, digging to the right depth, connecting the pipe runs properly and meeting the council's requirement that all stormwater stays on the site. A well that is too small or set too shallow will keep flooding the yard no matter what it cost.
How many soakwells do I need?
It comes back to roof and paving area. The City of South Perth's figure for minor additions is at least 0.02 cubic metres of soakwell for every square metre of impervious area drained — so a 100 square metre addition needs two cubic metres or more underneath it. Whether that is one large well or several smaller ones depends on where they can physically go on the block.
Why is my soakwell overflowing?
Usually one of four reasons: it has silted up and has no capacity left, it has cracked or collapsed, the pipe feeding it is broken or blocked, or it was never sized for the amount of roof draining into it. They look identical from the surface and the fix for each is different, which is why the first visit is about finding out which one it is.
Do I need council approval for soakwells in Como?
Stormwater drainage for new buildings goes through the City of South Perth, and the requirements vary between its eight drainage precincts. For straightforward repair and replacement work on an existing system the position is different again. Tell us what you are doing when you ring and we will tell you plainly what applies to your job rather than guess at it.
How long does the work take?
A straightforward replacement is usually done inside a day. It gets longer when access is tight, when there is paving or concrete over the top of the old well, when the pipe runs have to be re-routed, or when the roof area needs more capacity than the original system had. Which of those applies to you is on the written quote before the day, not sprung on you during it.
Get it sorted
Tell us what is happening and we will call you back to arrange a time. A licensed plumber comes out at no charge, looks at the drainage, and leaves you with a written price. Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 4:00pm.