Why this page sits on a leak detection site
Every winter we get called to leaks that are storm water.
The symptoms overlap almost exactly. Ground that will not dry. A damp patch against an external wall. Water seeping across paving. Someone reasonably assumes a pipe has failed, and rings a plumber about a leak.
The tell is the meter. A supply leak shows up there — with everything in the house shut off, the meter keeps turning, because water is being lost from a pressurised line. Storm water does not touch the meter at all. It is rain that has already fallen, and the problem is that it has nowhere to go.
Working out which one you have before anyone digs is the entire value of the first visit, and there is no charge for it. How leak detection works
How soakwells work, and how they fail
Perth sits on sand, and the standard answer here is a soakwell: a buried chamber that takes the run-off from your roof and lets it soak away into the ground rather than running across the surface.
They fail in a small number of predictable ways.
They fill with silt
Sand and leaf litter wash in over the years and take up the volume that was meant for water. The soakwell is still there and still connected — there is simply less room in it than there was.
They are undersized for what got added later
An alfresco roof, a patio, a shed or a carport puts more roof area onto a system that was sized for the original house. On Harrisdale blocks, where these additions are common, this is one of the more frequent findings.
The line to them is broken or blocked
Downpipes connect to the soakwell by a buried pipe. If that pipe has been damaged, or has filled with debris, the water backs up and comes out at the nearest low point instead.
The ground around them has stopped draining
Compaction during construction and landscaping can leave a layer that water will not pass through, so the soakwell fills and stays full.
A downpipe is not connected to anything
More common than it should be. The pipe goes into the ground and stops.
Harrisdale, sand and new estates
Harrisdale is a new suburb built on sand — gazetted in 2007, with the main estate starting construction in July 2010 — and the drainage that went in with it is roughly as old as the houses.
That gives the suburb a particular profile. The systems are not old enough to have collapsed, but they are old enough to have silted up, and they were sized for the house as it was originally built. Fifteen years of landscaping, paving, patios and sheds later, the roof and hard surface area feeding those soakwells is often noticeably larger than what they were designed to take.
With 98.5% of Harrisdale homes being separate houses, each property manages its own run-off on its own block, so it is your system and your problem rather than something shared.
What we do
Work out what it actually is
Storm water, a supply leak, or a drain fault. Those are three different repairs and we establish which one before quoting anything.
Find where the water is going, or not going
Following the downpipes to the soakwells and finding the break, the blockage, or the missing connection.
Give you a written price
For clearing, repairing, connecting or adding capacity, whichever it turns out to need. No call-out fee, free quote, and the price you are given is the price — no hidden costs at the end.
Do the work
New or additional soakwells, repaired or replaced connecting lines, downpipes connected properly.
When it is not storm water
If the meter is moving with everything off, this is not your page — there is a leak on a pressurised line and it needs finding. Leak detection
If the water only appears when the house is draining — a shower, the washing machine, a toilet — it is on the waste side. Blocked drains
If it is actively running and getting worse, that is a different urgency. Emergency plumbing
Who does it
Tim holds plumbing licence 8396 and gas licence 13098, and does the work himself. HouseWorks Plumbing & Gas is based in Leeming, roughly fifteen minutes from Harrisdale. Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 4:00pm.