By Matthew Baring-Gould, Kingscliff-based drainage plumber. Servicing Tweed Heads for 4 years. 5.0 stars across 173 Google reviews. Licensed NSW 383340C and QLD 15036450. ABN 74 605 392 348.
Blocked shower waste and outside overflow relief gully (ORG) at a Casuarina two-storey property. Set up hydrojet upstairs in the bathroom and flushed all lines thoroughly. Walked the owner through prevention. Set up a second jet position at the ORG leading from the kitchen. Thoroughly cleaned and flushed fat deposits from the kitchen and the trap into the council main. CCTV confirmed the lines were running clear with a slight back-fall in a short section just before the council main (not disrupting flow). Also jetted the laundry and the downstairs bathroom. Cleaned up.
What the customer called us for
Owner called us out for blocked shower waste and the outside overflow relief gully from the kitchen. Two symptoms, likely one cause somewhere in the shared drainage.
What we found when we got there
Two-storey property with upstairs and downstairs bathrooms sharing drainage. Fat buildup from the kitchen had reached the ORG and was starting to back up. Jet upstairs cleared the shower side. Jet at the ORG cleared the fat downstream. CCTV confirmed free-flow with a slight back-fall in the last section before the council main – minor enough not to affect flow, not worth fixing on this visit.
Why we did it this way
A blocked ORG with a blocked shower is almost always one drain backing up two separate access points. Clear the main cause (fat in the ORG), the shower drain resolves itself. The CCTV pass after the jet is the important part: it lets us see what else is going on in the lines so we know whether the fix will hold or whether there is an underlying problem. Noting back-fall without fixing it is honest – on this property it is not causing the symptom, so the owner does not need to spend on relaying it unless the symptom returns.
What we did on site
- Set up hydrojet upstairs in the bathroom.
- Flushed all upstairs lines thoroughly.
- Walked the owner through the weekly flush routine for the kitchen.
- Set up hydrojet at the overflow relief gully leading from the kitchen.
- Thoroughly cleaned and flushed fat deposits from the kitchen trap into the council main.
- Flushed with hot water repeatedly.
- Ran the CCTV camera to confirm lines were clear.
- Noted a slight back-fall in the last section before the council main.
- Hydrojetted the downstairs laundry and bathroom.
- Cleaned up on completion.
The result
Both blocked points cleared. Full house drainage jetted. Owner has the maintenance routine to prevent repeat. Slight back-fall noted for the owner’s records but not actioned because it is not causing the current symptom.
If you have the same issue
If you have a two-storey home on the Tweed coast and multiple drains block at once, the cause is almost always one line feeding both. A full house hydrojet from the upstairs bathroom down to the ORG at the main is often cheaper than two separate blockage-clear visits. Add a weekly kitchen hot-water flush and you reset the whole system. Call Matty on 0447 188 394 or request a quote.
Customer names and addresses have been withheld. Individual results vary. Drain Masters Plumbing is licensed in NSW (383340C) and QLD (15036450).
Frequently asked
What is an ORG?
Overflow Relief Gully. An outdoor drain fitting that acts as the pressure-release point for the sewer system of a property. If the sewer blocks downstream, water backs up and overflows at the ORG instead of inside the house. You usually see them as a gully grate set into the ground near the house wall.
If the camera shows back-fall, why not fix it straight away?
Back-fall is only worth fixing if it is causing a symptom (recurring blockage at the same spot, water pooling in the line). On this property the back-fall was slight and the lines were otherwise clear, so the current blockage was explained by fat alone. If the owner gets another blockage in the same spot in the next year or two, we revisit the back-fall then.
Why jet the whole house instead of just the blocked fixtures?
When two fixtures block at once, it is usually one line causing both. Jetting just the two visible problems leaves any upstream buildup in place. A full house jet (upstairs bathroom, kitchen ORG, laundry, downstairs bathroom) clears every line and leaves nothing to build back up quickly. The extra time on site is small compared to a repeat callout in two months.
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