Tamborine Mountain facts for a plumbing job
A different council
Tamborine Mountain, taking in North Tamborine, Eagle Heights and Mount Tamborine, is in Scenic Rim Regional Council's area.
Planned around on-site sewerage
Council's 2022 growth strategy set a 1 hectare minimum for new rural residential lots, partly so on-site sewerage disposal doesn't affect constrained or ecologically significant land. It also notes the cost of servicing unreticulated land.
Wet, and nearly all houses
Council says the mountain gets more than 1550mm of rain a year. At the 2021 Census, 93.7% of occupied homes were separate houses.
Long-term owners
44.3% of homes were owned outright, against 29.1% across Queensland. The median age was 50.
Is your home on sewer and town water?
Don't assume either way: ask Scenic Rim Regional Council what services your property has. If you're not on sewer, the system on your land is an on-site sewerage facility, such as a septic tank, an aerated treatment plant, a biofilter or a composting toilet. It has to sit within your boundaries, along with the area where treated effluent is applied.
Looking after a treatment system
Council's fact sheet says state legislation requires aerobic wastewater treatment plants to be serviced every three months and aerobic sand filter systems once a year. An approved service agent does the work and the report goes to Council. Not keeping up regular maintenance is an offence.
Keep roof and surface water out of the system, and don't let anyone repair or alter it without Council approval. When an alarm sounds or it starts to smell, call your service agent. Our septic systems page explains what a plumber can check.
Rainwater tanks and overflow
Homes that rely entirely on rainwater or delivered water must still have a tank, and the planning scheme expects a house with no town water to have at least 45000L of on-site storage. When a tank is replaced, a licensed plumber has to disconnect the old one and connect the new.
The overflow must be piped to a lawful stormwater point, such as an inter-allotment drain or the kerb and channel, or to a soakage pit if that isn't possible. See rainwater tanks and tank pumps.
Licences and runoff
Licensing is still Queensland's. Check the business and the person doing the work on the QBCC's registers through myQBCC. Natural runoff and overland flow from a neighbour's land is a civil matter, Council says, though it can act where an illegally built structure is causing a nuisance or flooding.
What we would do
Before you buy or renovate on Tamborine Mountain, find out what wastewater system the property has and ask for its service records. They tell a plumber more than an inspection on the day. If the system itself is alarming or smelling, start with your service agent; if the trouble is in the pipes running to it, or in the tank plumbing, that's a job for a licensed plumber.