24 hour plumbing in Macquarie, Canberra
Macquarie is one of the first suburbs built in Belconnen, sitting high on the ridge beside Aranda with the Jamison Centre as its local hub. The original homes are among the oldest in the district, and every street mixes untouched 1960s houses with full rebuilds on former Mr Fluffy blocks.
What usually goes wrong in Macquarie
- Original galvanised steel water services with low pressure, brown water and bursts at threaded joints
- Pinhole leaks on copper hot water lines under concrete slabs
- Earthenware sewers cracked by clay movement and invaded by eucalypt roots
- Weak showers from gravity-fed roof tanks in homes never upgraded to mains pressure
- Grease and sanitary blockages in shared drains under the Jamison Centre food outlets
Local notes from the plumbers
Macquarie is one of the older suburbs in Belconnen, built through the late 1960s and early 1970s on the ridge between the Jamison Centre and the Aranda bushland. Galvanised steel water pipe was still being used at the start of that period, so a handful of homes on the earlier streets are on their original service and show the classic symptoms of falling pressure, brown water first thing in the morning and a burst at a threaded joint behind a wall. The rest are copper, which lasts longer but pinholes on the hot line in a slab. Earthenware sewers are the norm, and the mature eucalypts along the reserve edge and the street plantings have roots in most of them. Because the suburb sits high, water pressure is on the low side and older homes with gravity-fed hot water in the roof give a weak shower until the tank is replaced with a mains-pressure unit. Mr Fluffy demolitions left rebuilt homes with new plumbing next door to originals, so two neighbours can have entirely different problems. Retail plumbing at the Jamison Centre adds grease and sanitary blockages to the mix.
Housing in Macquarie
Late 1960s and early 1970s brick veneer and ex-government homes on the ridge between the Jamison Centre and the Aranda bushland, a growing number of Mr Fluffy rebuilds and modern replacements, and unit blocks and townhouses close to the Jamison shops.