Drainage problems rarely occur instantly. They take form over several weeks and months due to choices people make over and over again at their sink, basin, and laundry drain. By the time the drainage system becomes unproductive, there have already been many factors in place that caused it to become problematic. In the case of Melbourne’s inner north suburbs, such as Coburg, where the piping systems installed in the houses are quite old, this accumulation process occurs much more quickly than anticipated.
Why Older Coburg Properties Carry an Elevated Risk?
A significant proportion of Coburg’s housing stock was built before the 1970s.
Homeowners dealing with blocked drains Coburg will find that the drainage pipes in many of these properties commonly include earthenware or cast iron, materials that were standard at the time but are now operating beyond the service life they were designed for.
Earthenware pipes are susceptible to cracking underground movement and root pressure. Cast iron corrodes internally over decades, narrowing the effective bore of the pipe even when no accumulated blockage material is the primary cause.
Established trees, common throughout Coburg’s streets and gardens, send roots toward moisture in the soil, and the joints in older pipe systems provide exactly the kind of entry point roots work into progressively. Once a root mass enters a line, it gathers passing debris and restricts flow incrementally over time.
The Everyday Habits That Accelerate Blockages
Cooking fats and oils are by far the most likely cause of blocked drains in kitchens; it is how they go down the drain in liquid form, cool against the pipes and then solidify that does the damage. They team up with bits of food, soap scum and all sorts of other gunk to form a nasty blockage that just gets progressively worse the longer you leave it.
You might not even notice it at first; it is only when your sink starts taking an age to drain that you realise you have got a problem, and by then the mess has probably been building up for a while.
According to the ABS, Australians spent over $3.9 billion on residential renovations in a single year, an increase of over 10 per cent on the year before. With the average household looking at a major renovation at some stage, it is no surprise to see the plumbing system getting ripped out and replaced.
In the bathroom, hair gets caught in the drain screen and over time, all that soap scum and grime accumulates into a mat that slows everything down. And in the laundry, it is the lint from your clothes, plus any stray coins or wayward buttons that somehow made it into the washing machine, that are the main culprits.
But arguably the real bane of modern plumbing systems are wet wipes advertised as flushable; they just do not break down as proper toilet paper does and so they keep on accumulating at all the worst bits of the system.
Sewer Blockage vs Stormwater Blockage
These two systems handle different things and drain into different bits of the plumbing system. So if you are in an older place like Coburg and all your drains are slow, it can be a bit of a head scratcher trying to figure out what the problem is.
A sewer blockage is the one where the household waste from the toilets, basin, shower and kitchen sink has all backed up. Stormwater drains, on the other hand, just deal with the rain from the roof and the gutters; they usually operate on their own.
The key is being able to tell which system is the problem, and that can make all the difference when it comes to working out who will fix it and who will pay the bill. And in some older places, the dividing line between the two systems can get a bit fuzzy and before you know it, you are dealing with regulatory problems that go way beyond just clearing the drain.
What CCTV Inspection Shows You Need to Clear, But Not Fix?
Clearing the drain may help, but it will not do much to find out what is actually happening in the drainage system. A CCTV inspection will help you to determine what is causing the problems in the first place; is it broken pipes, roots penetrating the pipes, or maybe a pipe that needs to be secured?
The thing is that without finding out the real reason for the blockage, you will not be able to solve the problem because the blockage will appear again after a short while. It is impossible to solve a problem if you do not know its actual cause.
When a Slow Drain Becomes an Emergency?
Of course, having one slow drain is not very important in isolation, but if you have several of them at once and you notice something strange in the toilet’s operation when you use the water tap, you should consider it an emergency situation.
At that moment, it is extremely important to start the repairs immediately; the last thing you need is to face a backup of the sewage and to deal with flooding of your apartment. Every day is crucial.
