Oak Park
Blocked, burst or leaking in Oak Park?
Blocked drains, burst pipes and leaks in Oak Park, from the hilltop reserve to the living stream, passed to a licensed plumber day and night.
Plumbing in Oak Park
A postwar suburb around a Fawkner era reserve
With no railway station, Oak Park's housing subdivisions did not occur until after World War Two, and the fifties and sixties brought the quickest growth. Houses of that time were likely sewered in earthenware, so cracked joints and roots are the usual drain faults.
Oak Park Reserve, a hilltop remnant of John Pascoe Fawkner's estate, keeps an oak, cypresses and peppercorn trees thought to date from his time there. Old trees like these spread roots well past the canopy, so houses beside the reserve may meet roots in older sewer and stormwater joints.
Jobs in Oak Park
Reserve roots and fifties pipe
Blocked drains
Roots from an oak, cypresses and peppercorn trees in neighbouring sewer joints.
Pipe relining
A lining through root damaged clay where the reserve trees are close.
Burst pipes
Corroded galvanised water pipe in the fifties and sixties houses.
What it costs: hot water replacement cost, gutter replacement cost, toilet installation cost
Oak Park questions
The living stream and old galvanised supply
Why does stormwater back up near the living stream?
Merri-bek records that the stream includes a small permanent water body flowing into an ephemeral stream, which fills after rain and runs dry between storms. In heavy rain it may slow the outflow from nearby drains, so backing up at the outlet is checked before a property line is dug up.
Do the reserve's old trees mean a drain gets dug up?
Not usually. Where roots are in an old clay line, a camera finds the entry and a lining is the usual answer rather than a trench near the trees.
Is low pressure common in houses from that era?
It can be. Galvanised steel pipe rusts inside over the decades and narrows, so a weak tap in an older house is worth checking along the supply before fittings are replaced.
