Yard staying wet in Wilson?
Ring us and a licensed plumber comes out at no charge. He works out what is actually happening on the block, then gives you a written price before any work starts. Transparent pricing, no hidden costs, nothing owing if you decide against it.
Low ground, wetlands and a high water table
Wilson's river edge runs along the Canning and its associated wetland reserves. That is a pleasant thing to live near and a complicating thing to drain into.
A soakwell works by letting water pass out of a buried chamber into the sand around it. That only happens if the sand can take it. Close to a river and its wetlands, the natural water table sits high — and through a wet Perth winter it rises further.
So on the lower Wilson blocks you get a soakwell that behaves like two different systems depending on the season. In February it empties as fast as you can fill it. In July the ground around it is already saturated and it empties slowly, or not at all.
Two practical consequences follow.
Going deeper is not automatically the answer. The instinct with a struggling well is to dig a deeper one. On low ground that can put the chamber into permanently wet sand, which makes it worse rather than better.
Volume is what carries you through a wet week. If the ground will not take water away quickly, the only thing that stops the yard flooding is having enough capacity to hold it until the ground can.
This is the single most useful thing to know about drainage on this side of Wilson, and it is why a design copied from a block on higher ground can fail badly here.
The 1960s and 70s housing
Away from the low ground, Wilson's housing is mostly of the 1960s and 1970s — single-storey homes on reasonable blocks, built when a modest roof and a large garden made drainage a simple matter.
Those properties have since collected the usual additions: extensions, patios, carports, wider driveways, paving where lawn used to be. Every one of them increased the amount of water arriving at the drainage system and decreased the amount of open ground available to absorb the overflow.
There has also been a fair amount of subdivision and infill. A second dwelling on a rear half-block adds roof and hardstand immediately, and very frequently gets connected to whatever was already there.
The result across much of Wilson is the same as across Como: capacity that was adequate for the original house and is not adequate for what the block carries today. It is not a breakage, and it will not respond to having the drains cleared. Backyard flooding and drainage
Which council covers you
Wilson falls outside the City of South Perth, so the specific figures that apply in Como do not automatically apply here.
The underlying expectation is consistent across the metro area — stormwater is to be dealt with on the site rather than pushed onto the road, the verge or a neighbouring property. What varies is the detail: how volumes are worked out, what disposal methods are accepted, and what approval a given piece of work needs.
Give us the address rather than the suburb and we will work to the rules that actually cover your block.
What we do in Wilson
Soakwells sized for low, wet ground
Installation and replacement with the water table taken into account instead of ignored.
Additional capacity for extended and subdivided blocks
Where roof area grew and nothing went in underneath to carry it. Soakwell replacement
Blocked stormwater drains
Located first, then cleared — repeat blockages have a cause worth finding. Blocked drains
Collapsed and cracked chambers
Sinking paving, soft patches, failed concrete lids. Collapsed soakwell repair
Buried pipe faults
Found before anything is dug up. Leak detection · Stormwater drain repairs
Why Wilson calls us
Licensed plumber, licence 8396
Drainage is plumbing work and the licence holder does it.
$0 call-out and a free written quote
No charge to attend, price in writing before any work begins.
Honest about what will and will not help
On wet ground, some fixes genuinely do not work. We would rather tell you that than sell you one.
Clear hours
Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 4:00pm. No after-hours or weekend service.
Free quote in Wilson
Tell us where the water sits, how close to the river or the wetlands you are, and whether it is a wet-season problem or a year-round one. We will call you back to arrange a time.