Plumber Chester Hill, NSW 2162
Chester Hill is a post-war suburb on the Bankstown line between Sefton and Bass Hill, built up quickly after the war with fibro and brick cottages on wide blocks around Waldron Road and Chester Square. The Hume Highway and its industrial strip run along the southern edge, the railway through the middle, and the flat clay ground drains west toward Prospect Creek. It is now filling in with duplexes and granny flats.
What usually goes wrong in Chester Hill
- Earthenware sewers under post-war cottages cracked on clay and packed with roots from street trees and backyard figs
- Galvanised water lines in 1940s and 50s fibro corroded through, with brown water and poor pressure
- Duplexes and granny flats overloading original sewer lines that were laid for a single cottage
- Stormwater pooling on flat blocks and gullies surcharging in the streets that drain toward Prospect Creek
- Blocked and greasy drains in the workshops, food businesses and factory units along the Hume Highway side
Local notes from the plumbers
Chester Hill grew fast after the war, and the pipework under its fibro and brick cottages is mostly original. The oldest streets around Waldron Road and the station were plumbed in the late 1940s and 50s with galvanised water lines and earthenware sewers on Cumberland Plain clay. The galvanised has rusted from the inside so the pressure fades and the water runs brown after any shutdown, and the earthenware has cracked at the joints as the clay swelled and shrank, giving the camphor laurels, figs and jacarandas an easy way in. Blocked sewers are the steady call, with pinhole leaks in the 1960s copper next. Wide blocks are being split into duplexes or given a granny flat, and the second dwelling usually joins the original sewer line, so the drain that coped with one family for sixty years now carries two. The ground is flat and slow to drain; a summer thunderstorm leaves water on yards and surcharging gullies in the streets that fall away toward Prospect Creek on the western side. The Hume Highway frontage adds workshops and food businesses with greasy or blocked floor wastes.
Housing in Chester Hill
Fibro and brick cottages from the late 1940s through the 1960s on the grid between Waldron Road and the railway, some larger 1970s brick homes, walk-up unit blocks near Chester Hill station and the shops, industrial premises along the Hume Highway side, and a steady turnover to duplexes and granny flats.
