Burst pipes and frozen pipes, at a thousand metres

Cold does damage up here that it does not do down in Sydney. Water expands as it freezes, and in a pipe with nowhere to go that pressure splits the copper or pushes a fitting apart. You often do not find out on the cold night. You find out on the thaw, when the ice clears and the split starts running.

Outside taps, exposed pipework under the house and anything in an unheated subfloor are the usual casualties. So is a holiday house that has been sitting empty and unheated through a cold snap with nobody in it to notice.

What we handle

• Burst pipe repairs, inside the house and under it
• Frozen pipes thawed and then checked for splits before they run
• Emergency water shut-off and making the property safe
• Lagging and insulating exposed pipework before winter
• Outside taps and exposed runs protected or relocated
• Holiday houses and empty properties checked ahead of a cold snap
• Split fittings, failed compression joints and perished flexible hoses
• Old galvanised water service replacement where it keeps failing, with the line located before anyone digs

Why it's different up here

The Upper Mountains get frosts the rest of Sydney does not, and Blackheath at 1,065 metres and Mount Victoria at 1,043 metres are colder again than Katoomba. The pipes that fail are almost always the exposed ones: an outside tap on a south wall, a run under a raised floor, a laundry in an unheated lean-to. If you own a holiday house up here the risk is worse, because nobody is running the taps and nobody is home when it lets go. A burst that starts on a Friday in an empty house is a very different bill to one somebody hears.