Sydney Apartment Blocked Drains: Who Pays, Who Calls, How Strata Works

There is water backing up in your shower. You are living in an apartment. But you don’t know if this is your issue, strata’s issue or Sydney Water’s issue. Here’s the answer.

When a house is free-standing it is easy to determine who is responsible for the drains: If they are in your backyard, they are yours. In a Sydney apartment building it’s not quite so simple. Drain pipes extend from the building vertically in the stacks to the common areas horizontally, and then out via a property boundary that is the property of Sydney Water. If a blockage happens, the initial question isn’t, “what caused it?” It is “where exactly is it?”, because it is the location which would determine payment.

The Three Zones Of Responsibility Are The Geographical Areas Where Waste Management Is Carried Out

Zone 1: Within your lot. Only those pipes and drains that are exclusive to your unit, such as your kitchen waste pipe, your bathroom drain and your laundry connection, are your responsibility. One of these blocks are, you call a plumber, and you compensate the bill. As long as the blockage has not harmed common property or another unit, the strata are not involved.

Zone 2: Common property. The Owners’ corporation is responsible for the shared sewer stack that runs vertically down through the building, and any drainage connected to common areas, such as the garbage room, car park drain and garden drainage, as well as the horizontal collector pipe at the base. Clogging of these pipes is under the responsibility of the strata. It is charged from the building’s administrative/building maintenance account.

Zone 3: Sydney Water’s network. Sydney Water is responsible for the maintenance holes on public land and the sewer main under the street. If the blockage is within their vacant network (this is where a maintenance hole is on the street and an overflow is produced, or where a number of buildings on the same street are experiencing the same issue) please contact Sydney Water on 13 20 90.

The "Grey Zone": Where Does Common Property End And Your Lot Begin?

It is here that disagreement may occur. For olderSydney apartment buildings, the demarcation of lot versus common space is not necessarily clearly defined in plumbing systems. You will be responsible for the shared sewage pipe at the location of where your pipe meets it. Or is it a fittingness of common property to form the link?

Your strata plan, the legal document which documents the lot boundaries for each unit in the building, has the answer. The base concept is that in most typical strata plans, the common property will be the main sewer stack, and the collector drains, while the branch lines from each unit will be within the unit’s lot boundaries. However, there are differences and some of the structures have been changed over time in ways that do not reflect the original intent.

We document the obstruction by putting footage on camera as we clear it in a strata building and take a video of the blocking area and position it in relation to the pipe layout. This video footage is then the actual evidence presented to the strata manager as to where the cost lies, the individual unit owner or the owners’ corporation. If not, then the allocation is a guess and guesses cause conflicts.

What If The Blockage Is In The Shared Stack?

This is the situation that aggravates the most. Drainage backups occur when there is a blockage in the common sewer stack, usually due to the accumulation of grease, wet wipes or a root entering the building directly at the base of it. It’s the ground floor and basement units that suffer the worst. The standing sewage, is not caused by the resident. The individual who flushed the wet wipes may be several stories up.

The responsibility for clearing the shared stack is within the strata. But damage to the unit’s edifice, the contaminated bathroom, broken flooring, the need for professional cleaning, may result in a number of insurance claims filed on behalf of the unit. Strata Insurance covers damage to the common property in the building. Damage to fixtures and improvements inside lot will be covered by lot owner insurance in the affected unit. The unit’s contents insurance applies to items contained in the unit.

We will issue a full report on each Strata drainage job performed, including the location of the blockage, what caused the blockage, the state of the pipe, which Strata units were involved and if the blockage was in common property or a private lot. This report is crucial in determining the strata manager’s ability to properly allocate costs and for each party’s insurer to evaluate the insurer’s claim.

Preventative Maintenance: Strata Committee's Best Investment

Keeping a drain from clogging up is the most inexpensive method to deal with drain clean up in an apartment complex. So what proactive strata committees in Sydney are doing:

Inspection by CCTV and Jetting of common stacks annually: The plumber uses a drain camera to view the main drainage of the building, and clears any blockages before they build up. Cost: Usually ranges from $500 to $1500 per building based on size and complexity. That’s compared with a single emergency blockage clearing, which costs $600-$1,200, not to mention the damage if the sewerage backs up into a ground level unit.

Building wide notices on flushing practices: Place a reminder sign in laundry rooms and by bins that only 3 P’s (Pee, Poo, Paper) should be put in the bin, as well as a reminder sign for residents to put wet wipes and sanitary products in a bin. While this may seem obvious, you can actually measure a drop in drain blockages in buildings that show concern for drains.

Scheduled flexi hose replacement: Some progressive strata committees will require the building to have a flexi hose replacement on a building level every seven years rather than waiting for the most common source of water ingress events to occur in the building. The cost per unit is little, when compared to the damages that can be caused by one burst hose.

If you are a member of a strata committee in Sydney, then make annual maintenance of your drain a priority during the next annual general meeting. The cost to the owner’s corporation for preventative clean is approximately $50/unit/year for $1000 clean. A single emergency backed-up sewer overflow, professional cleaning and insurance claims cost thousands – not the kind of dispute that anybody wants to see between their neighbors.