Drainage trouble in Karawara?
Ring us and a licensed plumber comes out at no charge. He works out what has failed, and you get a written price before any work starts — no hidden costs, and nothing owing if you would rather not proceed.
Shared drainage, shared problem
Karawara developed largely through the 1970s, and a great deal of what went up was grouped housing rather than standalone homes on individual lots. Unit blocks, villa groups, duplex pairs and clusters of townhouses.
That produces a distinctive kind of drainage system. Instead of one house with its own downpipes running to its own soakwells, you get several roofs feeding shared runs that cross property boundaries before they reach shared wells.
Which creates three complications you do not get on a standalone house.
The symptom and the fault are often on different properties
Water backs up at one unit's grate because a section thirty metres away — under someone else's courtyard — has failed. Chasing it from the wrong end wastes a day.
Nobody has the drawings
Drainage installed as part of a development in the 1970s, then altered over five decades of renovations, rarely comes with a record anyone can lay hands on. Working out what is live and what was capped off years ago is genuinely part of the job.
Responsibility is unclear until the fault is found
Whether a repair is one owner's, shared between several, or a strata matter depends entirely on which section has failed. Finding that out is the first step, not a formality afterwards. Strata and commercial drainage
The load problem underneath it
Grouped housing concentrates roof and paving.
A development that put four or six dwellings where one house would otherwise sit has a great deal of hard surface and comparatively little open ground to soak into. The drainage was designed for that at the time — but the margin was never generous, because there was nowhere spare to put extra capacity.
Five decades on, those systems have had the usual amount of sand wash into them, the usual settlement at joints, and in many cases additional paving added by owners since. A system built with little slack does not have much left to give.
That is why Karawara jobs are so often about capacity and silting rather than dramatic failures. Nothing has collapsed. The system has simply lost the small headroom it started with. Blocked stormwater drains
Councils, precincts and the on-site rule
Karawara sits in the City of South Perth, which requires all stormwater falling on a site to be collected, contained and disposed of on that site, regardless of how heavy or how long the rain is.
The City works in eight drainage precincts, and requirements differ between them. On a grouped development that can matter more than it does on a house, because there is less room to absorb a requirement you did not expect.
Tell us the address rather than the suburb and we will tell you what applies.
What we do in Karawara
Soakwells for houses and unit groups
New installation and replacement, sized to the roof and hardstand actually draining in. Soakwell replacement
Tracing shared runs
Working out where a system goes when nobody has a drawing of it. Leak detection
Blocked and silted stormwater drains
Located properly before clearing, because where the blockage is tells you what it is. Blocked drains
Collapsed chambers
Ground giving way over a well that has failed, including under driveways and parking bays. Collapsed soakwell repair
Pipe repairs between downpipe and well
Quotes that work for a committee
On strata and grouped properties the written quote often has to go to someone who is not standing in the yard looking at the problem.
So it is itemised, it says what is included, and it is the price. Transparent pricing, no hidden costs, nothing added at the end. If one section needs replacing and the rest is sound, the quote says exactly that rather than pricing the lot because it is easier to write.
The visit to look and quote is free either way.
Free quote in Karawara
Tell us whether it is a house or a grouped property, where the water backs up, and whether more than one dwelling is affected. We will call you back to arrange a time. Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 4:00pm.