How to deal with and avoid inadequate stormwater systems
Stormwater is easily the most overlooked, under-engineered service in or around your house. Despite local authorities insisting on the submission of plans promising to adhere to their requirements prior to construction, I frequently run into stormwater nightmares on...
Plumbing Services Design and Drafting
Get in touch with us if you need to design and construct any type of residential or commercial plumbing. We have Professional Indemnity insurance for our designs, and unlike most other plumbing designers, we have on-site trade experience. We have over a decade of...
Low pressure gravity hot water to instantaneous conversions
There's still some older houses in Adelaide running low pressure hot water systems. These are usually 3.6kW electric but they can also be gas fired.Just last week I decommissioned a low pressure gas water heater and installed a Rinnai in Tea Tree Gully on a house that...
Changing sink taps to mixer tap
One of the most common changes to plumbing during a small renovation is the conversion of wall taps to a sink mixer. This happens most commonly in kitchens but also in laundries. Here's a bunch of pics I took today at a job in Banksia Park with internal brick walls...
Vulcan Quasar wall furnace servicing and repairs
The most common domestic gas heater I deal with is possibly the Vulcan Quasar wall furnace. I also see a lot of Rinnai and Vulcan gas room heaters and various brands of decorative log fires, but the Vulcan Quasar wall furnace has become topical since the manufacturer...
How to fix a blocked kitchen sink drain
If you've ever tried to unblock a drain with chemicals, you probably already know that it doesn't work. This article will show you how to unblock your sink drain without using chemicals. This article will apply to laundry tubs, kitchen sinks, and hand basins. Step 1 -...
Explaining backflow prevention
This article briefly describes how backflow can occur, and the need for backflow prevention in plumbing installations. The page here briefly describes what backflow is, and the need for backflow testing in South Australia. How does backflow occur? Backflow most...
Gas leak – Fire in the cooktop!
Five weeks ago I attended a domestic gas cooktop in Northgate where fire had come out from under the knobs during cooking. Even I would have been spooked if I had been there cooking when this gas leak happened. This household uses their cooktop every night so the...
Extreme water pressure at Bosch hot water Windsor Gardens
Last week a customer from Windsor Gardens messaged me saying his toilet was making a horrible noise when they flushed it. When I attended site and flushed the toilet to see what the noise was, it sounded to be coming from outside. I went outside and asked him to flush...
How to relight your gas hot water pilot flame
If the pilot flame on your gas storage hot water system needs relighting, the instructions below show you how. These instructions will work for most gas storage hot water systems. To remove the access panel on a Rheem water heater, pull the bottom straight up. The...
Repairing broken and leaking water pipes
Recently I've been called to repair leaking water pipes where contractors have accidentally broken the copper water service between the water meter and the house. These situations immediately create two plumbing emergencies. The first one is finding the water meter...
Replacing a Rinnai Eco 16 hot water unit
Today I had to attend a hot water unit on a rental house where the tenant was complaining about the hot water running cold. All I knew before I got there was that it was a continuous flow gas hot water unit and that it was frequently shutting off and delivering cold...