Plumbing emergency? Call (07) 4234 0123, available 24/7.
Plumbing emergency? Call (07) 4234 0123, available 24/7.
A toilet that won’t clear, a drain gurgling every time the washing machine empties, or water coming back up the gully out the back.
Give us a call and we’ll get someone out to you the same day where we can.
$0 Call Out Fee (7am – 5pm, Mon – Fri)
Have a plumbing emergency? We’re available 24/7.
We clear blocked drains across Cairns and the northern beaches, from kitchen sinks and toilets through to sewer lines and stormwater that can’t keep up.
When you call us, a plumber answers the phone, listens to what your drain is doing, and arranges an on-site visit to confirm the quote and clear the drain. If your drains are backing up into the house, we treat it as urgent and get to you the same day where possible. If it can safely wait until business hours, we’ll let you know that too, so there’s no after-hours fee on the invoice.
Most blockages give you a bit of warning before they properly let go. These are the ones worth acting on.
One slow fixture on its own usually means the blockage is close by, in the trap or the branch that serves it. When two or three fixtures start playing up at the same time, the problem is generally further down in the main line, and that’s the one worth getting on to quickly. Once a main line blocks, the next thing to overflow is whichever fixture sits lowest in the house.
Most blocked toilets come down to a build-up that has been narrowing the pipe over time, or something going down that shouldn’t have. We clear the pan and check the line past it, especially if your toilet has blocked more than once, as it’s likely not a toilet problem.
Kitchen sinks block from fat and food scraps cooling and setting on the inside of the pipe. Bathroom basins block from hair, soap and toothpaste doing the same thing more slowly. Both clear properly once the pipe is cleaned along its full length rather than just at the entry point.
Hair and soap in the bathroom, lint and detergent build-up in the laundry. These come on gradually, so a slow drain often gets lived with far longer than it needs to be. We clear the waste line and check the trap and the grate while we’re there, since both collect the same build-up and are usually part of what is holding the water back.
When the main sewer line blocks, everything upstream of it backs up, and the first sign is often water rising in the outside gully. That gully is doing its job when it happens, it’s designed to overflow outside rather than inside. We clear the line and find out what put it there.
Downpipes, surface drains and the pipework that carries water away from the house. Blockages here show up as water pooling in the yard or coming back over the top of a pit, and the cause is often the size of the pipe rather than anything stuck in it.
Some blockages are caused by the pipe itself rather than anything that went down it, where a section has cracked, sagged or been pushed apart and now catches everything passing through. Clearing a drain like that buys a few months at best. Where we suspect it, we’ll put a camera down the line so you can see the condition of the pipe and decide what to do next.
Give us a call and talk to a plumber. If it’s urgent we’ll get to you today where we can.
A few things about Cairns make blocked drains more common here than other parts of Australia. Knowing which one you are dealing with is the difference between clearing a drain and fixing it.
Through the dry, a stormwater system can look like it’s coping fine. Then the wet season arrives, the ground is already saturated, and the same system has to shift a lot more water a lot faster.
Anything that was marginal becomes obvious in a single afternoon. It’s why we’d rather look at a stormwater line before it gets pushed to its limits.
Roots go looking for water, and an underground drain is a reliable supply of it. They work their way in through joints and hairline cracks, then keep growing inside the pipe where conditions suit them. A root mass catches everything that comes past it, so what starts as a slight slowing gets worse each month.
Cutting the roots out clears the drain, but it doesn’t fix the gap that let them in, which is why root blockages come back on a cycle unless the pipe itself gets sorted.
We’ve pulled the covers off enough Cairns properties to notice a pattern. Plenty of homes here were plumbed with 90mm stormwater pipe where 100mm should have been the standard.
In a milder climate you’d probably never know. In a place that can drop a month of rain in a day, that missing 10mm is the difference between a system that copes and one that backs up into the yard every wet season.
If your stormwater has never quite kept up, it’s worth knowing what size pipe is actually in the ground before you assume the problem is a blockage.
Cooking fat poured down the sink, wet wipes that say flushable on the packet and aren’t, hair, and coffee grounds. None of them block a drain on their own. All of them narrow it a little at a time until something ordinary finishes the job.
When you notice water pooling against the house, or coming back over the top of a pit, that’s a sign your stormwater drainage isn’t keeping up, either because something is blocking it or because the system was never quite big enough for the job.
We clear blocked stormwater drains, put a camera down where the cause isn’t obvious, and install new drainage where the existing run can’t cope. That covers new pits and surface drains, re-running undersized pipe, and sorting out the drainage around patios, sheds and extensions that were added after the original system went in.
The best time to look at any of it is before the wet season. A camera down the line in the dry tells you what you are working with while there’s still time to do something about it.
01.
You talk to a plumber, who will ask what the drain is doing and work out how urgent the issue is.
02.
We turn up, confirm what the problem is, and give you a quote before we start the work. There’s no call-out fee between 7am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.
03.
Most drains are cleared on the first visit. If your drain issue is more complex we’ll let you know what’s going on and if we need to come back.
04.
Before we leave your property, we’ll let you know the main cause of the blockage and whether it’s likely to happen again.
We only recommend work that genuinely needs doing, and our team follow this standard on every job.
Province Plumbing is based in Cairns and works across the northern beaches. Whoever turns up to your place works to the same standard, and we’re a member of the Master Plumbers’ Association of Queensland, which sets the code of conduct we adhere to.
You may spot the truck around town before you need us. The plate reads POOP TRK, which has turned out to be a lot easier to remember than a phone number.
Tell us what the drain is doing and we’ll tell you what it needs. Same day where we can.
It depends what the drain is doing. Waste water coming back up inside the house, a toilet that won’t clear when it’s the only one in the place, or water pooling against the building are all worth treating as urgent, and we’ll get to you the same day where possible. A single slow-draining basin can usually wait for business hours, which also saves you the after-hours fee. Give us a call and we’ll work out how quickly you need us.
It depends on where the blockage is and what’s causing it, which is why we quote on site rather than over the phone. Quotes are free between 7am and 5pm Monday to Friday, with no call-out fee, so you can find out what the job involves before committing to anything. You’ll have the price before any work starts, and if the job turns out to be bigger than it first looked, we’ll talk it through with you before we keep going.
A drain that blocks in the same place every few months is usually telling you something about the pipe rather than about what’s going down it. Tree roots getting in through a joint, a section that has sagged so water sits in it, or a crack catching debris as it passes are the three we find most often. Clearing it will keep working, for shorter periods each time. A camera down the line shows which of the three you’re dealing with, and that’s what decides whether it needs a repair or just keeping an eye on.
Most of the time, no. The large majority of blockages clear through an existing access point with nothing dug up at all. Excavation only comes into it when a section of pipe has collapsed or broken badly enough that clearing it won’t hold. If it ever gets to that, you’ll see the camera footage first, so you know exactly what we’re recommending and why.
On a slow bathroom basin it will sometimes shift enough hair and soap to buy you a bit of time. On anything further down the line it does very little, because it never reaches the blockage, and it won’t touch tree roots or a broken pipe. One thing worth knowing: if you’ve poured caustic cleaner down a drain, tell us when you call, so we can handle it safely when we get there.
As a general rule you’re responsible for the sewer pipework on your own property up to the connection point, and the water authority looks after the main beyond it. Where that boundary sits isn’t always obvious from the surface, and working it out is part of what we do on site. If the blockage turns out to be on the authority’s side, we’ll tell you, so you’re not paying to fix something that isn’t yours.
Repairing the affected section is usually enough, and replacing a full run is rare. What matters is how much of the pipe is actually damaged and how deep it sits, because that’s what decides the size of the job. We’ll show you the camera footage, explain what the repair involves, and leave the decision with you.
It depends where the blockage is. A basin or a kitchen sink is generally sorted within the visit, while root blockages and anything in the main sewer line take longer. Adding a camera inspection will extend the time on site. Once you’ve told us what the drain is doing we can give you a realistic idea over the phone.
Gas fitting, bathroom plumbing, commercial work and the smaller jobs around the house.
Burst pipes, failed flexi hoses, and leaks hiding under slabs and driveways. We find where the water is coming from and stop it.
Repairs and replacements for electric, gas and solar. We test the system first and tell you whether it actually needs replacing.
