PVC was sold to a generation of renovators as the pipe you install once and forget about. Away from the water, that promise mostly holds up. Near the coast, it's a different story. Salt spray settles on every exposed surface, the afternoon sun hammers downpipes...
There's a particular rhythm people fall into with a plunger. First, it's slow and hopeful. Then it's fast. Then it's a full-body, both-hands, teeth-gritted assault on the bowl, as though the clog might give up out of sheer intimidation. Most of us have been there,...
Picture yourself in the cleaning aisle of the hardware shop, bottle in hand, squinting at a label crammed with warnings and chemical names you'd need a science degree to pronounce. The drain's been sluggish for a week, the sink's holding water like a bird bath,...
Two blocked drains can look almost identical from where you're standing. It’s the same slow gurgle, same grey water sitting where it shouldn't. One you can sort out yourself in twenty minutes with things already in your kitchen. The other will quietly get worse every...
There's a particular kind of relief when a bad smell finally goes away on its own. The sour whiff near the laundry door that had you lifting drain grates back in autumn is gone. Nobody's mentioned it in a fortnight. The window stops getting propped...
Checking the clock is something most homeowners never think to do when a drain starts to smell funny. It’s not the plughole and definitely not the S-bend. This is because the single most useful piece of information about a bad drain odour isn't what it...
Two houses on the same street. Same era, same underground clay pipes running under the front garden, same tired terracotta joints. Both owners get a blockage within a month of each other, both ring around for quotes, and both end up staring at a piece...
The Eastern Suburbs property market, stretching from Bondi and Coogee through Woollahra, Double Bay, Rose Bay, Bellevue Hill and Vaucluse, represents some of Australia's most valuable residential real estate. With median house prices regularly clearing several million dollars and prestige sales running well past eight...
Drive down almost any street in Bondi, Bondi Junction, Edgecliff, Rose Bay, Coogee or Randwick, and the architectural pattern is unmistakable. Three and four-storey walk-up apartment blocks built in the post-war and 1970s development boom sit side by side with grand period homes in Woollahra,...
From the cliff-top homes of Vaucluse to the apartment blocks of Bondi and Bronte, the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney are home to some of Australia's most prized real estate. Living so close to the coast does have its hidden challenges, though, and one of the...