SA Water's pipes and yours
SA Water provides water and wastewater services across Adelaide. The city's three major wastewater treatment plants are at Bolivar, Glenelg and Christies Beach, and SA Water maintains more than 27,000 km of water mains statewide.
Exactly where SA Water's part ends on your property is the one thing we couldn't confirm: its website wouldn't load for us, so we won't guess. Ask SA Water before anyone digs near your boundary.
Don't assume it's at the fence. South Australia's plumbing code lets a utility's inspection point sit inside your boundary or outside it.
Tea Tree Gully is a special case. SA Water took over the old Community Wastewater Management System there from 1 July 2022 and is moving every connected property to a modern sewer. On converted blocks, an inspection point near the old septic tank marks where your responsibility begins, and SA Water owns the new pipes it laid on your land.
What's different about plumbing in Adelaide
A city of houses
At the 2021 Census, 75.0% of Greater Adelaide's occupied homes were separate houses, 16.3% townhouses, terraces or semis and just 8.2% flats or apartments. Most jobs here involve a yard, a gully and private drains.
Frost is rare in town, less so up north
The Bureau's West Terrace station averages 0.3 days a year at 2°C or colder, over 102 years. Parafield Airport averages 9.4 such days and Edinburgh RAAF 8.7, so lag exposed pipes in the northern suburbs.
Dry years move the ground
SA Water says ground movement is the most common reason its water mains break, with more breaks in low rainfall years as soil shrinks and hardens. Water bubbling up near the street could be its main, not your pipe.
Murray water in the mix
SA Health says the River Murray supplies 40% of Adelaide's water, and up to 90% in a drought year. It puts dissolved salts in metropolitan tap water at 150 to 400 mg/L (salinity, not hardness; we found no official hardness figure).
Sewer or stormwater?
The two systems are separate. According to the EPA, drains inside your home (kitchen, laundry, toilet, bathroom) run to the sewer or a septic system, and outside there may be a sewer gully under a tap. Roof downpipes and other outdoor drains feed stormwater, which flows untreated to creeks and the sea.
So an overflowing gully trap is a job for a drain specialist, while a spilling downpipe or yard pit is a stormwater problem.
Big trees, roots and digging
Big trees have legal protection, on private land as well as public. City of Marion's fact sheet explains the rules: a trunk 1 metre or more around, measured 1 metre up, makes a tree regulated, and 2 metres makes it significant. Damaging one without approval is an offence, earthworks in its root zones included. City of Salisbury adds that root damage to pipes isn't, on its own, enough reason to remove one. Ring your council before a trench goes in near a big tree, or ask about pipe relining.
Licences and the eCOC
Consumer and Business Services administers plumbing and gas fitting licences in South Australia. A business that contracts to do the work needs a contractor licence, and the people on the tools must be registered workers. Ask for the licence number and check it with Consumer and Business Services before work begins.
The Office of the Technical Regulator looks after the technical rules. After plumbing work, you must receive an electronic certificate of compliance (eCOC) within 7 days; gas fitting has a separate eCOC, due within 30 days. It confirms the tradesperson is correctly licensed and the work was tested and meets the Australian Standards. See our compliance certificates guide.
Hot water rules in South Australia
A new water heater in an established SA house must comply with a standard made under section 66 of the Water Industry Act 2012; repairs to parts and like-for-like warranty swaps sit outside it. A tempering valve is required on a replacement only if one was there before, though every solar installation needs one. Our Adelaide hot water page covers repair, replacement, heat pumps and REPS.
Find your Adelaide specialist
Pick your job: hot water, blocked drains, burst pipes, leak detection, gas fitting, toilet repairs, an emergency plumber or commercial plumbing. Suburb pages include Glenelg, Salisbury, Modbury, Norwood and Mount Barker.
What we would do
Find your inspection point and your latest water bill before you call anyone. Trouble in the street or at a main goes to SA Water; trouble inside your block goes to a specialist plumber. Talk to the council before digging near a big tree. And get the licence number at the start and the eCOC at the end.