Yearly Archives: 2021

Stop Tree Roots in PVC pipes

Bellevue Hill, Sydney, Australia

This post is a simple one. The house shown here is quite new!

The sewer pipes are also new PVC. But, where the house sewer line joins into the Sydney Water sewer main there are roots from a large Fig tree on the footpath out the front growing into the sewer connection.

We are putting Vaporooter into the pipes to stop tree root regrowth at that single point.

It’s a simple process and I hope you have seen it before.

You can see our equipment on the rock shelf behind and also see the Vaporooter foam coming up through the cap in the footpath.

Even new houses with PVC pipes can get tree roots growing into them.

There is a simple way to Stop tree roots in Drains. It’s Vaporooter!

If you need to find out more about it, Ask me.

Call 1800 637 600

Contact The Lone Drainer and Pronto 02 9664 4990

Or check out VaporooterAustralia.com.au

3.6 billion people don’t have a flushing toilet!

Whaaaat? Astounding but true!

World Toilet Day is Friday, November 19th 2021.

The day has been sanctioned by the United Nations aimed at bringing awareness to the plight of more than 3.6 billion people worldwide who don’t have a place to go to the toilet in private and then wash their hands. That means that women and men and young girls and boys have to go to the toilet outdoors. A major concern is that women and young girls without a toilet do their business under cover of the night which leads to personal safety threats over and above the concerns of simple hygiene and sanitation that we all take for granted.

Imagine everyone really knowing your business?

Many of us have more than one toilet in our home to choose from and go there with complete privacy. So in a year when we’ve had time to contemplate the simple things, contemplate that!

Or if you are inclined to use toilet paper, Consider Who Gives a Crap. They donate half of their profits to improve sanitation in third world countries. And that’s a good thing!

When Wylie’s Baths needs a plumber

Wylie’s Baths in Coogee 2034 has kept within the Covid 19 guidelines to remain open for their patrons during the StayInside orders of 2021. They have over 50,000 swimmers a year and occasionally need help from their local friendly plumber.

The baths manager Courtney tells in 1 min 27sec what goes on behind the scenes to deliver a unique ocean pool where you can get a great cup of coffee and a sandwich.

Check it out!

Don’t flush our drinking water?

As the summer of 2021 approaches, our water consumption is back on the menu.

Even though our borders have been closed to tourists and immigration and Australians returning home to sit out the pandemic have had their numbers slashed, our water consumption continues to rise.

During our current building boom, its not unusual for every new home to have at least two bathrooms with his and hers showers and hand basins’. And even the most modest Sydney home has at least two toilets.

Australians have been world leaders in water conservation with water saving taps and showers now the norm. If you didn’t know the dual-flush toilet cistern is an Australian invention.

Don’t be surprised but the dual flush toilet is still a big water user. Here in Sydney, with a few exceptions like urban domestic rainwater harvesting that uses rainwater to flush our household toilets and fill the washing machine, most of the water flushing our toilets is from our potable water supply. That’s our drinking water!

I grew up as one of six kids in a NSW country town of 13,000 people and our home in town had a metered water supply. But our family had a weekend shack on acres out of town where every drop of water we used was caught in rainwater tanks. The toilet was flushed with water piped from a dam over 300 metres from the house. It was a simple gravity system that piped muddy dam water across a paddock to the toilet cistern and flushing the toilet with the dam water left a brown stain on the toilet bowl.

There was a time when we didn’t go to the shack for a few weeks and what started as a simple toilet cistern leak that went unchecked, drained the farm dam down to a muddy sludge by our next visit. That weekend, as we flushed the toilet with our drinking water from the tank, I learned that our drinking water was way to precious to waste on flushing a toilet.

So, what does that mean here in Sydney?

Simply put, if you have even a slight toilet leak DO NOT IGNORE IT otherwise it will drain our dam.

Raw sewer overflows to Coogee Beach.

During the Stay at Home orders we’ve been doing emergency plumbing repairs like hot water, leaking pipes and Blocked drains.

The blocked drain that got my interest is the one taking the waste from 28 houses on Raleigh Street and Carrington Road, Coogee.

The filthy waste water has been bubbling up through the ground about 50 metres down the hill from the houses and running across the footpath in front of other homes not connected to the service, into the street gutters that drain into the creek at the north end of Coogee beach for most of July.

Apparently the 28 home owners are unaffected by the blockage because it’s not in their backyard and a Sydney Morning Herald article reports Sydney Water and Randwick City council cannot force the home owners to pay for any repairs.

It’s well known that every home owner is responsible for the maintenance of their waste water pipes up to where they join the Sydney Water sewer main out in Carrington Road.

This pipeline is known as a common sewer and the costs for any maintenance should be shared equally between all those home owners connected to it.

Come on Randwick Council, Stop this river of sewage running down to Coogee Beach!

Get a contractor to fix the problem and split the costs among the 28 property and home owners.

Click here to read our earlier post on Common Sewer lines.

Clean your gas room heater

Since June 25th 2021, we are being asked to stay at home with the latest COVID-19 outbreak.

Greater Sydney is settling into winter and it’s wet! So, if you have a gas room heater, now is the time to clean it!

Dust is the thing that diminishes the efficiency of a gas room heater. The simple thing to do is clean and vacuum the air filters and ensure the fans are turning freely.

Most heaters have a service manual that demonstrates how to dismantle, clean and reinstate the relevant parts.

Please remember Safety First.

If you don’t feel confident, call us on 02 9664 4990 for help or arrange for our gasfitters to do a gas heater health check.

How to Stop a Blocked drain in Coogee

Stop Tree Roots in Drains

Vaporooter Stops Tree roots in Drains

Hi, It’s Dave Conroy here from The Lone Drainer and Pronto.

I am in Coogee today and we are applying Vaporooter to a house in this tree- lined street. The people who own this house have had problems with their sewer.

Tree roots from this Hills weeping fig (ficus microcarpa) have been growing in their clay sewer pipes for over 10 years and we had been clearing blockages regularly.

We have been applying Vaporooter in those same pipes now for about four years and they haven’t had a blocked drain since. Those are great results!

If you live in a street similar to this, where there is a beautiful canopy above but underground, the tree roots are getting into your sewer pipes, then you should consider Vaporooter to Stop tree roots in your drains.

If you would like to find out about Vaporooter, call me on Sydney 02 9664 4990.

Is it O.K. to take a longer shower?

As Sydney and most of New South Wales is knee-deep in floodwater I had a friend ask me this morning, “is it OK to take a longer shower?”

I encouraged him and his entire family to take a longer shower over the next few days. Using the water may actually help those that are living downstream from Warragamba Dam where the residents and farmers are flooded by the water running over the dam spillway and overwhelming the Nepean and Hawkesbury river systems downstream.

Just over twelve months ago we were in the grip of a drought that was choking our country cousins and dust storms were commonplace across New South Wales.

The rain won’t last forever, in fact, it’s forecast to clear up this afternoon and deliver a 29° hot sunny day tomorrow.

The rain has exposed many blocked drains and stormwater pits and pipes. So when the sun comes out, make the most of the abundant water in our catchment dams and clean out those pits, grates, drains and the rainwater down pipes blocked with leaf debris.

World Plumbing Day 2021

Today is the 11th of March 2021 and it’s World Plumbing Day!

I just wanted to remind you that twelve months ago today, which was also World Plumbing Day, that we had a pandemic declared in Australia. While we’ve all had our lives changed over the last twelve months, the trees that you can see around me here are still growing in the drains in this house.

We have come back for our annual application of Vaporooter to STOP tree roots growing in the sewer pipes of this beautiful home.

Enjoy World Plumbing Day. Thank your local plumber, enjoy his company. Make him a cup of tea or coffee.