Blocked drains cleared
across Leichhardt

Possibly not, and it is worth establishing before anyone excavates. Stormwater here runs toward the Hawthorne Canal, which was straightened out of Long Cove Creek from 1895, and that canal discharges into Iron Cove, which is tidal. So the level at the bottom of the system moves twice a day. Rain arriving on a falling tide has plenty of fall to work with. The same rain on a high tide has much less, and the system backs up toward whatever is feeding it. A lighter storm at the wrong moment beating a heavier one at the right moment is exactly what that looks like.

Write down the time. Genuinely, that is the most useful thing you can do, and it costs nothing. If it happens on some storms and not others regardless of how heavy they are, timing is a strong candidate. If it happens on every rain event, or if it is getting steadily worse over months, that points at a restriction on your side. Two or three noted occurrences tell us more than any amount of guessing, and we would rather have them than sell you an investigation you did not need.

Yes, and here more than most places. On a system with a moving discharge level, the margin between coping and not is small, and a private line running at ninety percent capacity is fine on an ordinary day and fails on the day the tide is against it. Keeping your own side genuinely clear is where that margin comes from. It is the part you control, and it is much cheaper than the alternatives.

Your side of it, and we will be straight about where that ends. We can clear, camera and assess the private stormwater lines, pits and downpipes on your property and tell you whether they are actually restricted. We cannot change the level of a tidal outlet, and we cannot alter a council stormwater asset or the canal, which is heritage-listed. Anybody promising to fix the flooding outright is selling you something.

No, and mixing them up causes real problems. Sewer takes what goes down your fixtures. Stormwater takes rain off roofs and paved areas. They are separate systems that discharge to completely different places, and connecting a downpipe into the sewer is both against the rules and a good way to surcharge the system in heavy rain. If you are not sure which of yours is which, that is worth confirming.

No. They clear the bowl, which is all the label really promises, then fail to break down the way paper does. They are the most common avoidable cause of the sewer blockages we attend, and unlike the stormwater question there is nothing ambiguous about the diagnosis.

A standard clear through an existing access point is $150 to $400. A camera inspection with the footage handed over is $250 to $450. Jetting a stubborn or root-filled line is $400 to $700. An honest assessment of whether you have a fault at all is part of the visit, not an extra, because telling you nothing is wrong is a legitimate outcome.