For the past decade, Coburg’s renovation rush has created a disturbing picture: almost every renovation job stumbles upon Coburg plumbing that was just waiting to be found but nobody knew it was a problem. You strip out a bathroom and find you’ve got galvanised steel pipes which have been steadily corroding from the inside out for years. Next thing you know, you’re renovating a kitchen and come across a clay drainage system that’s been slowly getting choked with roots but somehow still managing to keep the water flowing. Renovate the laundry and you’ll find out the hard way that somebody in the past might’ve done the plumbing in a bit of a bodge job & has been slowly leaking away into the subfloor for years.
The Infrastructure Reality Beneath Coburg’s Renovation Boom
Galvanised steel pipes installed back in the 1940s and 1950s in Coburg are being slowly eaten away from the inside out. By the time you start noticing a drop in water pressure in the taps and showers, it’s been happening for years behind the scenes. Before the external pipe surface starts showing any sign of trouble, the internal corrosion has already got to the point where it’s a matter of when rather than if the pipe bursts. Spotting it beforehand is a bit of a win replacing it is a necessity, because if you wait till it’s burst and you’ve got water all over the inside of the wall then that’s a whole lot more expensive.
Clay sewer drainage under many Coburg homes has been slowly shifting over time it’s a result of the soil settling and moving a bit under the house through the seasons. Every time it shifts its creates new gaps in the joints and those gaps are like an open invitation for roots to come in. And it turns out that Coburg’s street tree canopy has been having a bit of a love-in with the clay drainage network underneath one that you only really notice when you start getting a lot of blocked drains but the problem is actually a lot deeper.
Hot Water System Reality Check
When it comes time to swap out the old hot water system many Coburg houses find out that the space it’s taking up and the supply lines just don’t fit the new unit they’re after. You might be used to an old big electric storage tank sitting in the laundry but a wall-mounted continuous flow unit or a heat pump is going to need a lot more room and a different kind of hook-up.
Continuous flow gas systems need a bit of oomph to work and a gas line that matches the system. A lot of the older Coburg homes have got pipes that were set up with a gas line that was the right size for what they had back in the day. You try to stick one of those high-demand continuous-flow systems onto a gas line that’s as thin as a half-inch in diameter and was only ever meant to power the kitchen stove and a gas heater? You’ve got trouble on your hands
Heat pump hot water systems are good for saving energy especially if you’ve got the right setup. But getting them installed requires some room for the outside unit, some special electrical cabling, and a path for the condensate drainage.
Drainage Under Coburg’s Newer Townhouses
New houses in Coburg have got modern PVC drainage all through the property. At the property boundary, that modern drainage connects up to the old clay or terracotta sewer junction that was already there before the houses were built. The internal pipework works like a charm. The junction point is where the problems tend to start even when you can’t see what the problem is that’s when blockages and failures start to pop up in houses that seem to be fine
Stormwater management on newly subdivided Coburg blocks presents a bit of a problem. Developers are often installing rubble pits and simple soil absorption pits to manage stormwater on new lots especially when the lot is too small to have a full stormwater drainage system that ties in to the kerb. These pits get all flooded up during a spate of rainy weather and can take ages to clear up between the storms. A proper stormwater system with pits that have drainage getting out to the street system sorts it out properly which is way better than a rubble pit.
Knowing When to Reline and When to Replace
Pipe lining is the way to go when the pipe is still structurally sound but it’s all gone to pot inside. You insert a resin liner inside the old pipe and let it cure which creates a brand new internal surface that roots and all can’t get a look in. For Coburg houses with pipes under established gardens, concrete driveways, or tiled floors, lining is a way to avoid the mess and extra cost that digging up the pipe creates.
