Emergency Plumber Glendowie

Glendowie was built mainly after the Second World War, and a lot of homes still carry their 1950s and 1960s plumbing. Galvanised steel water pipe is the classic example: it corrodes from the inside, so the first sign is often weak pressure at the kitchen tap or brown water after the tap has been off, and eventually a section rusts through. The drains are typically earthenware, laid in short lengths under long back lawns, and with so many established trees in the suburb, roots get into the joints and block them. Because the sections are big, the private drain between the house and the public sewer can be a long run, which is useful to know when working out whose pipe is at fault. Tobies on some older properties are buried under grass or have seized after decades untouched, so it is worth finding yours and checking it turns before you need it. Where sections have been subdivided, back houses sometimes share a drain with the front one. Access is via St Heliers, Kohimarama or West Tāmaki Road.

Glendowie is a quiet residential suburb on the headland between St Heliers and the Tāmaki estuary, developed mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. Sections are large and leafy, and many original homes have been extended or replaced, but plenty still have their first galvanised pipes and clay drains. Tāmaki Drive and West Tāmaki Road are the main links to the rest of the isthmus.