24 hour plumbing in Curtin, Canberra
Curtin is a quiet, established Woden suburb with a well-used local shopping centre, tree-lined streets and blocks that are larger than almost anything built in Canberra since. Most houses are original 1960s designs, often extended, and the suburb backs onto horse paddocks and the Molonglo corridor on its western side.
What usually goes wrong in Curtin
- Root-blocked earthenware sewers under fifty-year-old street trees and backyard gums
- Copper water lines splitting in the subfloor and along cold outside walls after frost
- Electric storage hot water units on their second replacement with failing relief valves
- Stormwater flooding downstairs garages on blocks that slope towards Yarra Glen
- Original toilet cisterns and tapware wearing out and running constantly
Local notes from the plumbers
Curtin was laid out in the mid 1960s and most of the houses are still the originals, brick veneer on strip footings with timber floors and a subfloor you can crawl through. That subfloor is where the trouble usually is. Copper water lines run under the house and along the outside walls, and the joints on the cold side of the house go first on frosty mornings. The sewers are earthenware, laid in reactive clay, and the street trees and backyard gums planted fifty years ago have found every cracked joint. A slow toilet or a gurgling floor waste in Curtin nearly always ends with a camera down the line and roots on the screen. Near the shops on Curtin Place the blocks slope towards Yarra Glen, and stormwater from the higher streets ends up in downstairs garages when a storm outruns the surface drains. The horse paddocks on the western edge sit low and wet after rain. Electric storage hot water units are common here, many on their second replacement, and the pressure relief valves on them are a frequent winter casualty.
Housing in Curtin
Mid-1960s brick veneer and a few weatherboard homes on generous blocks with timber floors and subfloor access, a handful of Mr Fluffy rebuilds, low-rise flats near the shops and the open paddocks along the western edge towards the Molonglo.