How we fix it
About this service in Melbourne
Why Inner Melbourne blocks the way it does
A blocked drain is never random. The cause almost always belongs to one of four Melbourne-specific stories, and telling them apart is what the camera is for.
Tree roots in old clay. The garden streets that make East Melbourne, Albert Park and the inner north so liveable are lined with mature plane trees and elms — sitting directly above sewer branches laid in short clay sections with a joint every metre. Roots find the joints, drink from the pipe, and grow into masses that catch everything else. Clearance buys time; the camera tells you how much pipe is actually left and whether relining is the smarter spend.
Grease off the hospitality strips. Acland Street, Fitzroy Street, Smith Street: every busy venue kitchen sends warm fat down the line each service, and it congeals further down — often in a shared or neighbouring residential branch, which is how a St Kilda flat ends up blocked by a restaurant three doors away. Hydro-jetting is the right tool here; an eel just drills a hole through grease that closes behind it.
Moving clay in the west. Maribyrnong and the inner west sit on reactive basalt clay that flexes with the seasons. Buried earthenware from the post-war build-out cracks a little more every cycle, letting roots and soil in. The wet-winter-then-blockage-season rhythm is predictable enough that we plan for it.
Wipes and rag, everywhere. The one cause with no postcode. Wet wipes don’t break down; they weave into rag masses with fat and hair and stop new pipes as happily as old ones.
Camera first, machinery second
For a one-off simple clog, we don’t perform theatre — the eel goes in and the drain is cleared. But for anything recurring, anything mainline, and anything involving sewage in living space, the CCTV camera earns its place: you watch the actual cause on screen, we know exactly which tool and which access point, and the written report that follows means any bigger decision — relining, replacement, or just “clear it again in two years” — is made on evidence, with footage you keep.
That report matters beyond the repair. For owners corporation buildings it establishes whether the blockage sits in your lot or common property — frequently worth hundreds of dollars in who pays. For house sales it’s condition evidence. And for recurring-blockage properties it converts a mystery expense into a managed plan.