Cessnock is half an hour up the road from our base, and the plumbing here runs from the original galvanised pipes in a miners' cottage to a rainwater tank and pump out past Pokolbin. A quote in Cessnock costs the same as one in Maitland: nothing.
NSW plumbing, drainage and gasfitting Lic. 000000C (demo)
Sample review
Swapped our old gas tank for a continuous-flow unit. They came out from Maitland on the day they said, cleaned up properly and left the old tank nowhere in sight.
Sample review · Wattlewater Plumbing is a fictional business
Working in Cessnock
In Cessnock, half the jobs are on town water and half are on a tank, and the plumber needs to know which before the van leaves.
Cessnock grew up as a coalfields town, and the streets around the main street and Aberdare are still lined with weatherboard miners' cottages, many with original galvanised water pipes that corrode from the inside out. Out of town, toward Pokolbin, Mount View and the vineyards, a lot of properties aren't on town sewer or water at all: they run on rainwater tanks and a pump, with a septic system or an aerated wastewater treatment system out the back. Summer storms come through the valley hard, so overflowing gutters and stormwater lines are a regular call here too. Many of the cottages have also been patched over the decades, with new copper joined straight onto the old galvanised steel, and that join is where the rust tends to break through first. In town the water and sewer mains belong to Hunter Water, so a fault in the street is theirs to fix, and the pipes inside your boundary are where we come in.
What we do here
Replacing corroded galvanised water pipes with copper or PEX, and swapping old electric hot water tanks in the miners' cottages around the town centre. Where copper has been joined onto steel, we cut that section out rather than patch it again.
Hot Water Systems →First-flush diverters, line filters, pump replacements and tank-to-house connections for properties past Pokolbin and Mount View. We size a new pump to what the house actually draws, so the shower holds its pressure while the washing machine fills.
Clearing blocked stormwater lines and downpipes, and fixing the drainage that sends water toward the house instead of the street. Old rubble pits that silted up years ago get replaced with a line that runs to the kerb or another approved point.
Blocked Drains →Questions
About half an hour from our Maitland base. Jobs that can wait a day or two are grouped onto the days we're already working out this way, and we give you the day when you ring rather than a vague window.
Usually it's leaves and sediment washing off the roof into the tank. A first-flush diverter and gutter mesh keep most of it out, and a filter on the line to the house catches what's left. If there's a layer of sludge in the bottom of the tank, it needs a tank cleaner first, and we fit the diverter and filter after. While we're up there, we check the inlet screen on the tank, because a torn one lets in mosquitoes and the odd frog.
Usually old galvanised steel water pipes corroding from the inside. Rusty water, low pressure and leaks at the joints are the signs. Replacing the worst runs with copper or PEX fixes it, and we quote the whole house or just the bad sections.
We do the plumbing side: the drainage lines from the house to the tank, and blocked lines between them. Pumping out a septic tank is a job for a licensed liquid waste contractor. Servicing an aerated wastewater treatment system is a job for an accredited service agent. If the line from the house runs clear and the system still backs up, the fault is in the tank or the absorption area, and we tell you that before you spend money on the drains.
Usually the cause is a blocked or broken stormwater line, downpipes that empty straight onto the ground, or a yard that falls toward the house. We clear the line, look along it with the camera, then reconnect the downpipes or add a pit and a drain that carries the water away from the walls.
Yes, on mains gas or on LPG bottles. A continuous-flow unit needs more gas at once than a tank does, so we check the meter and the pipe size before quoting. The changeover is gasfitting work, done under our licence, and you get the compliance certificate. On LPG, a continuous-flow unit can empty bottles faster than a tank did, so we also check the regulator and the bottle size and put any change in the quote.
Got a job?
Serving Cessnock, Aberdare, Bellbird, Nulkaba, Pokolbin, Mount View and Kurri Kurri.