Sink, toilet, shower or the gully out the back. A licensed local plumber clears it, then shows you what caused it, because a drain that blocks twice in the same place is usually the pipe rather than the household.
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A one-off blockage is usually the household. Wipes that were sold as flushable, fat that went down warm and set hard, a child's toy, roots of hair and soap in a shower waste. Those clear and stay cleared.
A drain that blocks again in the same place is a different problem entirely, and it is telling you about the pipe. Under a lot of Parramatta that pipe is old earthenware, laid in short lengths with joints that tree roots find and open. Add ground that swells and shrinks through the seasons and those joints move, so the line develops a lip or a dip that catches everything passing over it.
Which is why we clear it and then look. Harris Park, North Parramatta and Granville sit on pre-war sewer that has been extended and patched for decades, while the CBD and Westmead towers have new pipework but shared stacks where the blockage is rarely on your floor at all.
Licensed drain plumbers across Parramatta, with the blockage cleared on the first visit wherever the line allows it.
Stop using water in the house, the washing machine included, because everything you run adds to what already has nowhere to go. If a toilet is rising, do not flush it again to see what happens.
If waste is surfacing at the gully in the yard rather than inside, that is the system working as designed. The gully is the relief point and it is protecting your floors. It still needs clearing, but you have time to do it properly rather than in a panic.
Harris Park, North Parramatta and Granville still run on vitrified clay sewer laid in short lengths. Every joint is a seam, and a seam that weeps is an invitation. Roots rarely break into sound pipe; they find the one joint that has opened and follow the moisture in.
Cutting them out clears the line and buys a season or two. Whether that is the right answer depends on how much pipe is involved, which is what a camera tells you and guesswork does not.
Much of the district sits on Wianamatta shale, a reactive clay that swells when wet and shrinks when it is not. Over years that movement drags on anything buried in it, and on rigid old sewer it opens joints and drops sections.
The symptom is a blockage that recurs at the same interval in the same place. That is a gradient problem rather than a usage problem, and no amount of careful flushing fixes it.
Two separate networks run under most Parramatta properties. Stormwater takes rain off the roof and the yard, sewer takes everything from inside the house, and they are not supposed to meet. When they do it is usually an old illegal connection or a cracked line letting one into the other.
It matters because it decides the repair, the cost and who is responsible. After heavy rain here we get called to yards flooding that turn out to be a stormwater pit full of leaves, and to others that turn out to be sewer surcharging because the rain found a way in.
Wipes sold as flushable clear the bowl and then stop breaking down. In newer pipe they often pass. In an older sewer they catch on the first root or lipped joint and start collecting everything behind them.
Kitchen fat is the quiet one. It goes down warm and sets on the pipe wall a little at a time, and the line narrows for a year before anything visible happens.
Parramatta CBD and Westmead have a lot of newer apartments, and a blocked kitchen or laundry in one is often not your pipe at all. Units share a stack, and a blockage low in that stack surfaces in whichever apartment sits closest to it.
That changes who arranges the work and who pays, so it is worth knowing before anyone starts. We will say so when what you are describing sounds like a stack rather than your own line.
Not on a one-off. If a drain has blocked twice in the same spot, if you are about to pay for a repair, or if you are buying an older Parramatta home, seeing the pipe is the difference between clearing a symptom and knowing what to fix.
It also settles the boundary question. Where a blockage sits near the property line, footage of its actual position decides whether it is yours or Sydney Water's, which an opinion cannot.
You get a number before the tools come out, not after. The ranges below are what the Sydney market looks like in 2026, offered so you can sanity-check anyone quoting you, ours included. Your own figure comes in writing once we know what we are dealing with.
Hand tools or the electric eel on a standard blockage in business hours. Most one-off blockages end here.
Where the eel will not hold it. Usually set fat, or roots that have had a few seasons to establish.
Down the line to find what is causing it and where. This is the one that stops you paying twice.
Driven by how much pipe is affected, so the camera comes first and the number is real.
Issued with the footage when you need it for strata, an insurer or a purchase. Not an add-on.
What the pipe is made of and how far down the blockage sits are what move the figure. Timing is the other one, and if your drain can hold until morning without risking the house we would rather say so than charge you a night rate.
Where it is backing up, whether it is one fixture or all of them, and whether it has done this before. That is usually enough to know if it is a clear or a look.
Eel or jetter depending on what is in there. The aim is the first visit, and we will tell you on the phone if what you are describing is unlikely to clear in one.
If it has blocked before, the camera goes down while we are there. You see what we see, so the next decision is yours rather than ours.
Cleared at the price you approved, with the footage and a written report if you need one for strata, an insurer or a sale.
Stop running water, keep off the toilet, and call. If waste is surfacing at the yard gully rather than inside, you have a little time and we will tell you honestly whether it can wait for daylight.
Call 1300 585 048A blockage that returns to the same place on roughly the same interval is telling you something about the pipe, not about what you put down it. In Parramatta that is usually one of three things: tree roots finding a joint in old earthenware sewer, a section that has dropped because the clay ground under it moves with the seasons, or a fall that was never right. Clearing it works, but it comes back until the section is seen and corrected.
Across Sydney in 2026, clearing a standard blockage in business hours sits around $150 to $400, climbing toward $700 once a jetter is needed instead of hand tools. Putting a camera down to find the cause typically runs $250 to $450, and night work costs more. Whatever the job, the figure is agreed in writing before anyone starts, so nothing lands on the invoice you have not already seen.
You can, and on a slow basin full of hair and soap it sometimes works. It will not touch tree roots, and it does nothing for a cracked or dropped section. On old earthenware and on the ageing galvanised still under a lot of Parramatta homes, repeated use does more harm than good. If the drain is fully blocked rather than slow, skip it and call.
No. They pass through the toilet and then stop being a problem for you and start being a problem for your pipe. They do not break down the way paper does, and they snag on anything already in the line, which in an older sewer means a root or a lipped joint. Wipes plus roots is the single most common blockage we cut out.
The gully is the overflow point, and it is doing its job. It means the blockage is downstream of it, so waste from the house has nowhere to go and surfaces at the lowest opening instead of backing up inside. That is good news for your floors and bad news for the line. It needs clearing rather than watching.
Broadly, the pipework on your side of the property boundary is yours, and the main in the street is Sydney Water's. The complication is that the blockage is often found near the boundary, so which side it sits on decides who pays. A camera locates it properly, and that footage is what settles the question rather than an opinion.
Not for a one-off. If a drain has blocked twice in the same place, or you are about to spend money on a repair, then yes: it is the difference between clearing a symptom and knowing what to fix. It is also what you want before buying an older Parramatta home, because earthenware sewer under a pre-1970s block is worth seeing rather than assuming.
Leave your details and a licensed drain plumber calls you back. Blocked toilet, slow shower, gully overflowing or a blockage that keeps returning, you get a fixed price before anything starts.
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