Box Hill in numbers and rules
Apartments first
At the 2021 Census, 53.1% of occupied homes in the suburb of Box Hill were flats or apartments, 24.7% townhouses, terraces or semis and 22.0% separate houses.
A renters' suburb
57.9% of those homes were rented, roughly double Victoria's 28.5%. So for many people here, the first call about a plumbing fault goes to a rental provider.
Yarra Valley Water owns the meter
Yarra Valley Water owns the meter and stop tap and repairs the pipe from the main to the meter. Pipes from the meter to the building are the property owner's.
Permission to start digging
For stormwater work, Whitehorse can require a legal point of discharge report, engineer's drainage plans and then a drainage permit, which it describes as permission to start digging.
In an apartment or rental
In a block, the leaking or blocked pipe may serve several units. Before booking anyone, ask the owners corporation or building manager whether it's a shared pipe and who maintains it. If you rent, tell your rental provider: a burst water service, a blocked or broken toilet system and hot water that isn't working are all urgent repairs under Victoria's rental rules.
Hot water in rentals changes from 1 March 2027. If a rental's system permanently fails and can't be repaired, Consumer Affairs Victoria says the replacement must be an efficient heat pump or an electric-boosted solar water heater. Its exemptions include centralised building systems, which it says are common in apartments. Our Melbourne hot water page explains the rest.
Houses and townhouses: drainage in Whitehorse
Whitehorse owns drainage easements on both public and private land. Installing a drain in one, or building over it, needs a Council permit, so check your title before you extend.
For a new or moved stormwater connection, expect three steps: the legal point of discharge report says where to connect and whether an engineer's plans are needed, Council approves those plans, and the drainage permit lets the work start. Building in an area liable to flooding also needs Council's report and consent on flood levels.
Other Box Hill jobs
See leak detection, a blocked toilet, toilet repairs or an emergency plumber.
What we would do
In a Box Hill apartment, find out who owns the pipe before anyone pays a plumber: the owners corporation, the landlord or you. Then book the right specialist for the actual fault, leak detection for a stain spreading across the ceiling or a drain specialist for a backed-up shower, and send the written findings to whoever is paying.