Cleared the same day where we can, then filmed and located, because on a row of terraces the first question is not what blocked it but whose line it is.
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Most of the older inner west is housing built in rows to a common plan. What is less widely known is that the drainage followed the same logic as the buildings. A single private line commonly serves several properties, taking waste from all of them before it ever reaches the water authority's main.
Nothing about that is a defect. It is simply how a row built together was drained, and it has been working that way for a century. But it changes what a blockage means, and almost nobody living on one of these lines knows they are on it.
Here is the part that causes the most trouble between neighbours. When something obstructs a shared section, the property nearest the obstruction backs up first, because it is the first place the water has anywhere to go. That is a matter of position on the line. It is not evidence about who put what down a drain, and treating it as evidence is how the wrong person ends up blamed and occasionally billed.
The answer is not an argument, it is a camera. The footage shows where other properties join and the locate shows where the run goes and under whose land, and every owner on that line gets the same recording. That is a diagram instead of four recollections.
Then say so when you ring. On this housing that is not a coincidence, it is a description of the pipe.
One private line commonly serves several properties before it reaches the main. The terraces were built together, drained together, and connected together, because that was the sensible way to do it at the time.
It is still a private line. It is not the water authority's asset and it is not a council asset. It belongs to the properties it serves.
Which means a fault on it is a private matter between owners rather than something anybody else is going to come and fix.
That is position on the line rather than fault. The property closest to the blockage, upstream of it, is the one where waste has nowhere to go.
So the house with the problem is frequently not the house with the defect, and the household experiencing it has done nothing different from anybody else on the row.
It is worth understanding before a conversation with a neighbour starts, because the instinct is to assume the trouble began where it appeared.
The arrangement is invisible until something goes wrong. There is nothing in the house to indicate it, and most owners have never had reason to find out.
It does not appear on anything you were given at purchase in a form most people would recognise, and neighbours frequently have different beliefs about it.
A camera survey settles it in an afternoon by showing where the line goes and what else joins it.
A clearance fixes today. Footage tells you what you are actually part of, which decides every future conversation about the line.
On a shared run that is worth considerably more than it is on a private one, because the next failure may be somebody else's turn to notice it.
The recording is yours whatever it shows, and on a shared line it is worth sharing.
Which makes it a conversation, and an early one rather than a late one. A defect on a shared line does not respect boundaries and neither does the repair.
That is much easier to raise with footage than with a theory. A recording showing a specific defect at a specific point is a fact everybody can look at.
We are plumbers rather than mediators, and we will not tell anybody what they owe. We will give everyone the same evidence.
Frontages are narrow, rear access is frequently through the house or a lane, and the inspection opening may be in a courtyard that has been paved or built over.
So the practical question of how equipment gets to the line is a real part of the job rather than an afterthought, and it is worth mentioning when you ring.
Where there is no usable access point at all, installing one is ordinary work and it pays for itself the next time.
Still the largest single cause of what we clear, and on a shared line the load arrives from several kitchens and bathrooms rather than one.
That is not anybody behaving badly. It is arithmetic, and it is why shared lines block more often than private ones of the same age.
Kitchen fat is the slower version, and on a shared run it accumulates from several sources into the same restriction.
Roots do not break sound pipe. They enter at an opening the ground has already given them, and lines of this age are jointed every metre.
Street trees and rear gardens both contribute, and on a run that crosses several properties there are more candidates than on a short private line.
The durable repair removes the opening rather than this season's growth, and on a shared line it removes it for everybody at once.
A first blockage that clears easily does not need filming and we will say so. The third in the same year is the line describing itself.
On a shared line, repeats also tend to move around, because different properties notice depending on where the obstruction sits at the time.
Which is exactly why a survey is worth more than another clearance. It converts a recurring nuisance into a known defect at a known point.
Where the line runs, what else is connected to it, whether there is a defect, where it is, and what repair it needs.
On a shared private line, the first two of those are frequently worth more than the rest, because nobody has ever known them.
Footage of a sound pipe is a real result and it is the one that stops everybody spending.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Through an existing access point where the property has one.
Which on this housing answers whose line it is as well as what is in it.
For what a cable alone will not shift.
Position and depth, and which properties join it.
Shared with every owner on the line, not only whoever rang us.
Whether the house is in a row, and whether anybody either side has had the same trouble. That answer shapes everything after it.
Through an access point where one exists, with the least disruptive method that will genuinely work.
What the line serves, where it runs, and under whose land, which is the information nobody on these streets has.
Because a shared line is a shared conversation, and it goes better when nobody is arguing from memory.
Ring and a licensed plumber picks up. We can be moving toward you while you are still talking.
Call 1300 381 569On a row of terraces, genuinely yes. Houses built as a row were commonly drained as a row, so a single private line serves several properties before it reaches the main. Waste from all of them travels the same pipe for part of the way, and an obstruction anywhere in the shared section affects everyone upstream of it.
Position, not fault. The property nearest the obstruction backs up first because it is the first place with anywhere for the water to go. That is a matter of where you sit on the line rather than of who put something down a drain, and it is the single biggest cause of blame landing in the wrong place on these streets.
A camera and a locate. The camera shows where other properties join, and the locate shows where the run goes and under whose land. It takes an afternoon and it turns an argument into a diagram. Almost nobody has had it done, which is why almost nobody knows.
Where a line serves several owners the responsibility for it is shared between them, and how the cost is split is worked out between the owners. We will not give you a legal opinion on that, because it is not ours to give. What we will do is give every owner the same footage, so the conversation starts from evidence rather than from recollection.
Wipes, well ahead of everything else, whatever the packet claims. They do not break down, they snag inside the pipe and they collect everything behind them. Fat and hair account for most of the rest, and in a shared line all of it arrives from several kitchens and bathrooms rather than one.
Possibly, if that is where the line runs, and that is a conversation to have before there is a machine on site rather than after. We do not enter a neighbour's property without their agreement and we will not ask you to obtain it on our behalf.
Clearing a blocked drain is $150 to $400. A camera inspection is $250 to $450. Jetting is $400 to $700. Locating a run and marking what it serves is $250 to $500, with the written findings included.
Tell us which fixtures, and whether the house is in a row and whether a neighbour has had the same thing. That second answer is the one that decides what we are dealing with.
Cleared, filmed, located, and the evidence shared with everyone on the line.
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