Hawthorn facts that change the job
Apartments first
At the 2021 Census, 59.1% of occupied homes in the suburb of Hawthorn were flats or apartments and 24.3% separate houses. 45.6% were rented.
Canopy trees
Under Boroondara's local law, a trunk measuring at least 110 cm in circumference 1.4 m up, or 150 cm at the base, makes a tree a protected canopy tree.
Private pipe runs to the street
Every stretch of your stormwater pipe is the owner's to maintain until it meets Council's network, even the part beneath the footpath.
Council easement drains
Boroondara looks after Council-owned easement drains, even where they cross private land.
Two metres from the trunk
You need a Boroondara permit for works within 2 m of a canopy tree's trunk, and Council lists trenching, digging and excavation as works. Significant trees need a permit for works inside their Tree Protection Zone. A canopy tree needs a permit to remove even if it's dead or a weed.
So a drain repair beside a big tree may need a permit before the first spade goes in. Ask the drain specialist whether the job can avoid digging, for example with pipe relining, and check with Council.
Your drain, Council's drain
The spot where your stormwater enters Council's system is the legal point of discharge, and Boroondara's report on it also flags easements and any flood zone. Council's network can't take groundwater or wastewater: wastewater has to connect to the sewer, and managing groundwater is the owner's job.
Council clears blockages in drains it owns, maintains its own easement drains even inside private yards, and repairs an outlet pipe broken by Council property, a street tree on the nature strip for instance. For trouble in a private drain, its advice is simply to contact your plumber. Start with blocked drains in Melbourne.
Apartments and Yarra Valley Water
Living in a unit? Shared pipes are a matter for the owners corporation, so raise it there first. Each meter and stop tap is Yarra Valley Water's, and because its two pages give different sewer limits, it is the one to say where its pipe ends at your building.
Renters: from 1 March 2027, a rental hot water system that permanently fails and can't be repaired must be replaced with an efficient heat pump or an electric-boosted solar water heater. CAV exempts centralised building systems, a set-up it describes as common in apartments. See Melbourne hot water.
Boroondara also has heritage studies under way in Hawthorn, such as Wattle Road. If the work changes the outside of a house, check the planning controls first.
What we would do
Work out whose pipe it is first. In an apartment, that's usually a question for the owners corporation. In a house, it could be your own pipes, a Council easement drain or Yarra Valley Water's sewer, and only the first is yours to pay for. If a large tree stands within 2 m of where the plumber wants to dig, get Boroondara's permit before work starts. Then describe the job to us and licence-checked drain plumbers can respond.