Emergency Plumber Pelican Waters

Plumbing work done after work hours on the canals

Emergency Plumbing in Pelican Waters, A Suburb Still Being Built

The majority of suburbs will have a construction era. Pelican Waters has a construction century, or something close to it.

This land was consolidated in the 1940s when Roy Henzell Sr purchased over 800ha of coastal country to the south-west of Caloundra. The canal estate itself started to be built in 1990, the first to be constructed near Caloundra since the development of the canal estate at Kawana Waters in the 1960s, and covered the Bells Creek estuary with surrounding wetland. The new golf course, designed by Greg Norman, opened in the year 2001, the first residential course in his own State, and the land values in the suburb rose by about 85% between 1998 and 2003, compared to Caloundra generally. The marina and Marina Village precinct were developed decades later, and final land sales continue to this day.

That's the one thing you will find useful to know about plumbing here, that the thirty-five-year build-out means there are at least four generations of plumbing all in one area, usually within a few streets of each other.

• Original canal homes (30+ years old) with second or third generation hot water systems and flexi-hoses, in many cases not replaced, and tempering valves that have been over 10 years since replacement.
• Golf-boom houses built in the late nineties and early 2000s, all of which are becoming due for multiple systems to be replaced.
• Homes built in the 2010s typically with minimal issues, but not exempt.
• Builds that are as new as the last few releases, where the failures are probably due to defect, not age-related, and where the construction next door is an active hazard.

Apex Essential Services operates true 24/7 emergency plumbing services throughout it, the precinct of the canal frontages, the island and Spitfire Banks, the golf course precinct, Pelican Waters Boulevard and the shopping village, Marina Village and the newer estates towards Bells Creek. A real person answers at any time, a fully-equipped van rolls, and you agree to a set price before any action is taken.

What is an Emergency Here?

Honestly, on the phone, in every other location, whenever it is a health, safety or building issue, it's an emergency. In Pelican Waters there is a fourth reason that is truly relevant to the list, the Passage. I'll tell you more about that soon. The calls are concentrated at:

• Burst pipes and flexi hoses. The hoses that are installed under sinks, basins and toilets are the most common cause of water damage in homes in Australia, and in a three or four bathroom house, there are more hoses to go wrong. Many of the original hoses are still in place in the original 1990s houses.
• Sewage overflows. Waste flowing up the shower or floor drains or overflowing at the overflow relief gully on the outside. A health hazard in any place, and within metres of water on a canal block, an environmental issue.
• Suspected gas leaks. The meter, bottles, cooktop or hot water unit smells like rotten eggs. No waiting it out.
• Failing hot water cylinders with leaking cylinder bodies. A corroded-through tank may give little warning before releasing 250 litres or more and, in a large house, the cylinder is likely to be situated in a garage or plant room, next to living areas. There's much more on our hot water repair Pelican Waters page.
• Failure of pools, spas and outdoor plumbing. This suburb has a very high density of pools, outdoor kitchens, irrigation and pontoon services all of which have fixtures, valves and connections which can fail.
• Flooding due to storm and tide. Between November and March the low level estuarine ground and summer storms, sometimes at the same time with a high tide holding up the entire drainage system.
• Service strikes during construction or landscaping. A post hole or an excavator bucket through a water or sewer line is a pretty common call in a vibrant building site in the suburban area where landscaping is constantly going on.
• No water at all. Failure on your side of the meter is indicated by the tap being dead when the neighbours' run is operating.

The Passage is changing the meaning of the word “emergency”

Worth explaining this correctly, because it really does affect the way in which we work in this suburb.

Pelican Waters is located on the Bells Creek estuary and wetland, and the canal system links to Pumicestone Passage, one of the most ecologically valued sections of sea and estuary on this coast, and a declared marine park, bounded by Bribie Island National Park. There is a protected tidal habitat zone even at Jensen Park on the Bells Creek side of the suburb. This birdlife is not decoration, but the actual draw to buying into the suburb.

In practice, it translates to the place where a Pelican Waters block is clogged and overflows, or a burst pipe spills dirty water onto a yard toward a stormwater grate, it's not some theoretical “drain”. It's a marine park that many residents fish in, boat on and view each morning.

Canal-Front Plumbing: What the Water Does to It

The creation of a suburb on an estuary and wetland brings about a set of predictable and unique plumbing problems. If you own here, there are four that are worth knowing.

Filled ground settles

The land reclaimed or filled for canal development settles over many years. It produces cracked pipes or “belly” sections of pipes that have to bend and sag to collect waste and water between uses. A belly is a factory of blockages: solids fall out of the standing water, and the same place blocks over and over again, no matter how tidy a house is. This is likely to be the cause if your blockage occurs in the same location every few years, and there's a remedy for this.

Water table fluctuates in response to the tide

The amount of water below the canal blocks moves up and down according to the tides in the system. Every pipe that is opened up below the tidal elevation fills with groundwater twice a day, unnecessarily loading the sewer and degrading the pipe bedding with time. It also means a house that only gurgles or backs up around king tides tells you exactly where your leak is located, which is relevant to the phone conversation, as it is telling you where to point your camera at that stretch right away.

Underground leaks hide

If the low-lying property has a high water table, the breaking or leaking pipe can continue to flow for several days without anyone noticing, as the water from the pipe becomes part of the groundwater. Most of the time the first sign is a double bill, or a water meter dial that is turning when no water is running in the house. It's important to have your meter glanced at occasionally when all turned off here, especially if you have a large block with long service runs to pool, pontoon and irrigation.

The only real benefit

Pelican Waters was constructed from the year 1990 and is made of modern PVC drainage that has rubber-ring sealed joints, compared to the clay pipe drainage, which is a problem in older suburbs such as Buderim and Nambour. Clay has a joint about every metre, and roots utilise all of them. In long sections of PVC, the probability of tree root intrusion is much lower, and, when it does occur, it is typically at a single defect, and not throughout the entire length of the PVC. That's really good news, as a localised fault is typically not a reline of the entire length of the line.

Big Houses, More Fixtures, More Failure Points

The average size and furnishings of Pelican Waters homes are significantly higher than the average for the Sunshine Coast. That's the magic, and once the plumbing aspect of that comes to mind, it's simple, until something goes wrong, of course.

A small, three bedroomed house may have eight or ten flexi hoses, two or three isolation valves, one hot water system and a couple of external taps. A large Pelican Waters home can have a number of bathrooms, a butler's pantry, laundry, bar, pool and spa, outdoor kitchen, irrigation zones, pontoon service and even two hot water systems. Twenty-plus flexi hoses, dozens of valves and connections and a lot more pipe in walls and underground.

There is no design problem with that: it's just arithmetic. The more components, the more things could go wrong, and if a leak begins in a seldom-used guest bathroom or a butler's pantry behind a closed door, it may last for a period of time before anyone is aware of it. Three practical tips for a bigger home here:

• Do a hose audit. Open all the cabinets under all sinks, including those not used, and all vanities. Replace if they are showing rust staining, frayed braid strands or stiff, brittle hoses. Replace them in an original home built in the 90s. This is a quick, inexpensive task that alleviates one of the most expensive events a homeowner goes through.
• Take note of the location of the main. Ensure the other people in the house know it as well. The meter is not always in the place you'd expect on a large block. All members of the household should be aware of it.
• Check seldom-used areas periodically. Guest bathrooms, pool plant area, pontoon services. A leak in a room that is not used, is a slow leak with lots of time.

Construction and New Builds

Pelican Waters has an ongoing construction environment, right next to occupied homes, something most established suburbs don't. That creates two types of emergency.

New-build failures

When homeowners have a near-new home, they are often surprised to need an emergency plumber at all. What we actually see are defective or badly installed fittings that only fail after the warranty has expired, or tempering valves that fail, one of the items with the highest turnover on any present day installation, or builder 'short-cuts' that emerge when the handover takes place, ranging from poorly secured pipework to poorly sealed penetrations, or construction rubbish that remains in the drainage system, sand, render, cement washings and offcuts, that never got flushed out properly and are causing blockage months later. New doesn't mean immune. It means different.

Service strikes

This call is a very common one here. Services in modern estates can be shallower than people think, and Pelican Waters is a suburb where landscaping, pool installation, retaining walls, fencing, irrigation and shed slabs occur on a regular basis, whether on new blocks or on existing blocks that are being upgraded. A post hole in a sewer, an excavator bucket cutting into a water main, and a pool dig that ruptures a joint no one realised existed, it happens all the time.

The damage frequently doesn't make itself apparent right away either. A faulty or damaged joint could carry flow for eighteen months, and then more debris becomes trapped in the hole, leading to a clog, and the owner has no idea it goes back to the pool that was installed. The first thing we ask when we camera a Pelican Waters line and discover a clean fracture at a very convenient place is what was built nearby, and we are always surprised by the resulting answer.

An Older Community, and Why Temperature Matters

The Pelican Waters community has a large and expanding aged care and aged care resort development in the local area and in the golf precinct, within easy reach. There's only one reason to name that on a plumbing page.

To ensure protection against scalding injuries, hot water in the bathroom supplied to the outlet in the home must not exceed 50°C, and 45°C in a facility for the very young, elderly or otherwise vulnerable persons. But why? Water at 60°C or higher is what Legionella doesn't like, and a time of only about a second is enough to give skin a serious burn at 60°C. The same injury requires minutes at 50°C. That difference is reaction time and reaction time is most important to the people this suburb is increasingly populated with.

The component that controls that space deteriorates after approximately 5 to 8 years and is known as the tempering valve. For original 1990s residences that have not been changed, it's late and overdue. If the hot water temperature has changed significantly when you turn on your tap or you have never had your hot water temperature checked, it is worth calling a plumber, we check hot water delivery temperature on every hot water job we do here.

What to do while the van is on the road

1. Shut off the main. A water meter is typically located in a meter box in the ground at the front of the property, with the water meter tap next to it that is turned clockwise to cut off water supply to the entire property. It might not be where you think it's going to be, a large block may not be at the forefront of your mind during a dark, stormy afternoon.
2. Use the mini-stops. Small valves are located behind or under toilets, basins and sinks for isolation, closing one will contain the broken fixture and water will continue to flow into the rest of the house. In a house with 4 bathrooms, it's much better than shutting the whole house down.
3. Consider the source of any sewage leakage if it's happening outside. Stormwater grates, canal edge, water line. A rolled towel, or bag of garden soil or sandbags will stop contaminated water from draining into the drain inlet until we arrive. It is indeed something that really matters on a canal block.
4. If it is seeping into the house, do not use the water. All the water that flows out of any drain, such as dishwashers and washing machines, goes into the overflow.
5. Cut power to wet areas. Switch off the power points or appliances and/or light fittings if water has reached these. Avoid wading near live outlets.
6. Take photos of all with dates. When photos are collected at the height of the chaos, before cleanup efforts begin, insurance claims happen to be a lot easier.

This is how our Pelican Waters call-outs work

1. You call, someone is there. Every day of the year, 24 hours each day. We will determine what is running amuck, its location and speed, and will guide you through shutting off water or gas before the van arrives.
2. We triage by risk. The first to go are the gases, followed by the sewage, and uncontrolled water, anything that escapes toward the canals or Bells Creek gets weighed, too. You don't receive a hopeful arrival window, you receive a realistic arrival window.
3. Contain, diagnose. Stop it spreading, then address what went wrong, the recurring blockage on a canal block is likely to be a settlement belly, the new build's leak is likely to be a defect, and a “burst pipe” in an original home built in the 90s is likely to be a flexi hose that hasn't been replaced in years.
4. You agree to a specified amount. The total price including labour, standard parts and GST is clearly communicated before a tool is released. Real surprises mid-job stop the work and cause a requote, never a silent bill.
5. We repair properly. Most emergencies are solved in one visit by stocked vans. Where the permanent fix has to wait for parts, tide or daylight, we make the site safe, dry and documented, and then return at the earliest reasonable time.
6. The paperwork comes with you. Failure, location, what we did, with photos, in the insurance company, builder's warranty, and property manager format.

After Hours Pricing, No Mystery

Let's just get to the business of it. A call out at midnight will cost more than a call out on a Tuesday morning, but it's a true fact of every proper operator, that a licensed tradesperson is awake, stocked and on the road while the suburb is asleep. But it should never be an open-ended bill that is running with an hourly meter in secret.

The cost of our model is one price for the entire repair, in the plumber's presence, once you approve it before any of the work begins. This is inclusive of labour, standard parts and GST. When something real and unforeseen happens in the middle of the job, the job is stopped and we re-quote before we proceed. The spend is under your control throughout.

Don't forget the larger ledger as well. The plumbing repair is invariably the least expensive of the water damage cost items, especially in a high-end home where the quality of the flooring, joinery and finishes make the restoration cost much higher than average. Each hour the leak drips, it increases. The prudent action is the action that you take now, not the one you put off. Many emergency repairs and the resulting consequences are coverable on home insurance; our 'timestamped' photos and written reports are designed for that very process.

The Emergencies We See Every Week

Emergency	The Pelican Waters factor	Typical fix
Burst flexi hose	Large homes with many hoses, originals not replaced in 90s era homes	Isolate, replace hose and mini-stop, audit and quote all other hoses in the home
Recurring blockage	Settlement of filled estuarine ground, or groundwater infiltration at damaged joints	CCTV to locate the fault then patch repair or reline, usually no digging
Sewage overflow	Proximity to canals, Bells Creek and Pumicestone Passage	Contain first then clear and camera the line, permanent options quoted
Service strike	Pool digs, landscaping, fencing and retaining walls striking shallow services	Isolate, expose, repair and re-bed the service appropriately
New build failure	Faulty fittings or failed tempering valves, construction rubbish in drainage systems	Repair and document correctly to meet any builder's warranty claim
Leaking hot water cylinder	1990s era homes on second or third system; large homes may be on two systems	Valve repairs where viable, same day replacement when the cylinder has gone
Storm and tide flooding	Low estuarine ground with limited fall; outfalls slowed on high tides	Emergency clearing and diversion, post-storm CCTV of stormwater lines

Where We Attend

• Pelican Waters canal frontages
• Spitfire Banks and New Holland Drive
• The golf course precinct
• Pelican Waters Boulevard and Shopping Village
• Marina Village precinct
• Mahogany Drive and resort area
• The newer releases: Bells Creek
• Golden Beach
• Caloundra and Little Mountain

Close to but not on the list? If we can get to you in a hurry, we will, and if we cannot, we will let you know as soon as we can, so don't hesitate to call.

Why Pelican Waters Households Keep Our Number

• The telephone rings and someone answers it. The thing which most people complain about the “24-hour” plumbers is the voicemail at 1am. Every hour of every day of the year, ours is a staffed line.
• We know canal-estate plumbing systems. Specific conditions like settlement bellies, tidal groundwater infiltration, concealed underground leaks on low ground, these and many more are areas where there is a need to identify the problem quickly, and experience with a large number of canal blocks is the key to diagnosis.
• Every generation of the suburb. The 1990s original home versus the 2024 handover are completely different and the solution is different for each type of home.
• Licensed to carry out the work. Licensed plumbers are required in Queensland for plumbing and drainage works and licensed gas fitters are required in Queensland for natural gas and LPG works. All the tradespersons we send have the right ticket and of course we're happy to show you.
• The real commitment to containment. When it comes to a marine park, prevention of contaminated water from entering the waterbody is a critical element of doing the job right, not an add-on.
• Transparent pricing, established prior to beginning. An unexpected invoice shouldn't be a part of the stress during an emergency.
• Guaranteed workmanship. We will return and make it right in case something we fixed is not right, so the repair comes with peace of mind.