Plumber in Pymble

Pymble sits on the ridge, and what’s under the ridge dictates most of the plumbing here. Sandstone sits close to the surface across much of the suburb, so excavation is slow, noisy and expensive — a two-metre trench that takes an hour in Kellyville can take most of a day here and needs machinery that won’t fit down a lot of Pymble driveways. It’s the reason we quote relining first in this suburb and dig only when the pipe genuinely can’t be lined.

The housing is largely Federation, interwar and post-war on generous blocks, which means original cast iron waste stacks, lead-jointed clay sewer and copper supply lines that have been patched rather than replaced. None of that is a problem in itself; it becomes one when a renovation opens a wall and the pipework behind it turns out to be sixty years older than the bathroom in front of it.

Pymble’s blocks also fall away steeply east toward the Lane Cove valley. Downhill bathrooms, basement laundries and pool plant rooms below sewer level are common, and they depend on pump-out systems that people forget exist until the alarm goes off.