Plumber Padstow, NSW 2211
Padstow sits between Revesby and Riverwood on the Bankstown line, with a small shopping centre at the station and streets of post-war brick and fibro spreading south to Padstow Heights, where the ground drops toward the Georges River and Salt Pan Creek. Henry Lawson Drive and Davies Road are the main routes. The suburb has the classic Canterbury-Bankstown mix of 1950s pipework, clay soil, mature trees and a growing number of granny flats.
What usually goes wrong in Padstow
- Earthenware sewers under post-war homes cracked on clay and blocked with roots from camphor laurels and gums
- Pinhole leaks in sixty-year-old copper inside walls and under slabs, first noticed as a damp patch or high bill
- Stormwater rushing down the steep streets of Padstow Heights into yards and garages during summer storms
- Sewer surcharge and pooling water in the low streets near Salt Pan Creek and the Georges River after heavy rain
- Original electric storage hot water tanks and worn tempering valves failing in family homes with added bathrooms
Local notes from the plumbers
Padstow splits into two kinds of ground, and the plumbing follows the slope. The flat grid around the station and Davies Road is 1950s and 60s brick and fibro on Cumberland Plain clay, with earthenware sewers that have spent sixty years cracking at the joints as the clay moved, and camphor laurels, gums and jacarandas sitting over them; blocked drains and pinhole leaks in the original copper make up most of the calls. Down in Padstow Heights the streets are steep and the houses a little newer, and the problem changes to stormwater: a summer thunderstorm sends water down the hill faster than the grates can take it, and the low blocks near Salt Pan Creek and the Georges River see gullies surcharge and water sit in yards. The Georges River flood of March 2022 reached the low ground along Henry Lawson Drive nearby, and the tidal creek edge is slow to drain. Many blocks across the suburb now have a granny flat or have been split into a duplex, and the extra fixtures run into a sewer line that was laid for one small post-war family.
Housing in Padstow
Brick and fibro homes from the 1950s and 60s across the grid between Davies Road and the railway, larger 1960s-70s brick homes on the slopes of Padstow Heights above the Georges River and Salt Pan Creek, a few walk-up unit blocks near Padstow station and the shops, and duplexes and granny flats replacing older houses.
