24 hour plumbing in Florey, Canberra
Florey is a quiet 1980s suburb in the west of Belconnen, close to Kippax Fair and the Ginninderra Drive corridor. Its houses are a decade younger than Kaleen or Hawker, which shows in the PVC drains and slab construction, but the hot water systems and tapware are at replacement age.
What usually goes wrong in Florey
- Electric storage hot water tanks on the laundry wall failing in the first cold snap of winter
- Copper water services thinning at the bends between the meter and the house
- Long private sewer runs on larger blocks blocked by roots and clay movement
- 1980s cisterns, mixers and inlet valves past the point of repair
- Garden taps and exposed hot water relief lines splitting in frost
Local notes from the plumbers
Most of Florey went up in the early to mid 1980s, which puts it on the cusp between the copper and earthenware era and the era of PVC drains and plastic fittings. What that means on the ground is that the sewer lines are usually PVC and hold up well, while the water service from the Icon Water meter to the house is often copper that has thinned at the bends. Hot water is the big call here. The suburb has a high share of electric storage tanks mounted outside the laundry wall, many on their second or third replacement, and they fail in the first cold snap of June when the whole street is drawing hard at the same time. Blocks around the Florey shops on Ratcliffe Crescent and along Southern Cross Drive are larger than anything built in Gungahlin, so long private sewer runs and a lot of garden give tree roots and reactive clay more opportunity. The 1980s cisterns and tapware are also at the point where washers and inlet valves are no longer the fix and the whole unit needs replacing.
Housing in Florey
Early to mid-1980s brick veneer homes on generous blocks, most on concrete slabs, with clusters of townhouses near the Florey shops and along Southern Cross Drive, and a handful of newer infill homes on subdivided corner blocks.