What blocks a stormwater drain
Stormwater blockages are different from sewer blockages, and they come from a short list.
Sand
This is the main one in Perth. Fine sand washes off paving and gardens, runs down the grate and settles in the low points of the pipe. It builds slowly and silently until the run is half its original bore, then a quarter, then closed.
Leaf litter and roof grit
Gutters shed grit constantly, and anything the gutter guard misses ends up in the downpipe. Big trees over a roof make this a yearly problem rather than a decade one.
Tree roots
Roots follow moisture. A hairline crack or a slightly open joint in a stormwater line is an invitation, and once roots are in they catch everything else going past.
Collapsed or crushed pipe
Not strictly a blockage, but it presents as one. Old pipe that has been driven over, undermined or broken by roots will stop water just as effectively as a plug of sand. Stormwater drain repairs
A full soakwell
The run is perfectly clear — the problem is at the far end, where the well has silted up or collapsed and has nowhere to put the water. It backs up the pipe and presents at the grate. Collapsed soakwell repair
That last one catches a lot of people out. The symptom is at the grate, but the fault is thirty metres away at the other end of the system.
How we find it
We locate the blockage before clearing it, because where it is tells you what it is.
A blockage two metres in is a different problem from one at the soakwell end, and a run that blocks again three months after being cleared is not a blockage problem at all — it is a broken pipe or an undersized system quietly telling you so. Clearing it again without finding that out just puts the same call in your diary for next winter.
Once we know where it is and what is causing it, you get a written price for the fix before any work starts. Transparent pricing, no hidden costs.
Why it keeps happening in Como
Como's drainage is old. The suburb was subdivided in 1905 and the main building years ran through the 1950s and 1960s, so a great many stormwater runs here have been in the ground for over half a century. Pipe that age has had plenty of time to shift at the joints, crack, or collect a season's worth of sand every year since it went in.
Then there is what has been built since. Only about a third of Como's occupied dwellings are separate houses — the rest are semi-detached homes, townhouses, villas and flats. Subdivision adds roof and paving, and more water through the same old pipe moves more sand into it.
There is also the ground itself. Como runs between the Swan River to the north and the Canning River to the south, and the lower parts of the suburb closer to either foreshore drain more slowly than the higher ground. A system that is marginal to begin with struggles first where the ground is lowest.
Repeat blockages are a symptom, not bad luck
If the same drain has blocked twice in two years, clearing it a third time is money spent on the wrong thing.
Sand does not accumulate in a sound, well-graded, adequately sized run anywhere near that quickly. When it does, there is normally a reason underneath — a section that has lost its fall, a break letting sand in from the surrounding ground, roots holding debris, or a soakwell at the end that stopped taking water some time ago.
We will tell you which of those you have, and what it would take to stop it happening again. Sometimes the honest answer is that clearing it is genuinely all that is needed. When it is not, you should know that before you pay for the same job a fourth time.
Blocked drains in strata and villa groups
Como has a lot of grouped dwellings, and their stormwater often runs across more than one property before it reaches a soakwell. That makes a blockage a shared problem, and it makes finding the responsible section the first task rather than an afterthought.
We work on villa groups, duplex pairs, unit blocks and commercial premises as well as standalone houses. Commercial plumbing
What this page does not cover
This site is about stormwater. If the blockage is in the sewer rather than the stormwater system — a toilet, a gully, a kitchen or bathroom waste — that is a different system with different rules, and it is worth saying so when you ring so the right thing is brought out.
When it is urgent
If water is backing up somewhere it could get into the house, say that when you ring and we will bring the job forward as far as our day allows. We work Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 4:00pm, and we do not run an after-hours or weekend service. Urgent drainage work
Get it cleared
Tell us where the water is backing up and we will call you back to arrange a time. A licensed plumber comes out at no charge and you get a written price before anything starts.
More on blocked stormwater drains in Como · Soakwells and stormwater