Hornsby facts for a plumbing job
Apartments lead
59.1% of occupied homes in the suburb were flats or apartments at the 2021 Census, and 35.3% separate houses.
A lot of renters
43.0% of Hornsby homes were rented, against 32.6% across NSW.
Hornsby Shire Council
The whole suburb is in the Hornsby council area, by ABS boundary files.
Separate systems
Council says stormwater getting into the sewer can overload it and lead to an overflow of diluted raw sewage.
How rainwater ends up in the sewer
Common ways in are a downpipe connected to the sewer instead of the stormwater line, a cracked sewer pipe in wet ground, or a yard gully that collects surface water. Each one sends rain into a pipe built for wastewater.
If your toilets gurgle or the gully overflows only when it rains, say so when you book. A drain specialist can camera or smoke-test the lines to find where stormwater is getting in.
Stormwater on your land
Hornsby Shire Council sends owners to a plumber or hydraulic engineer for blocked, damaged or broken private pits, pipes and drainage easements, and says its own powers on stormwater are limited. So if a private pit on your block overflows, the first call is a plumber, not Council.
On the sewer side, the owner's part runs to Sydney Water's point of connection and includes it. In a Hornsby unit block, a private line that several owners share is all of theirs to fix, by Sydney Water's rule, so bring the strata manager in early. Read more in who owns the sewer pipe.
Next steps
For a blocked or overflowing drain, see blocked drains in Sydney or CCTV drain inspection. We'll put you onto a licence-checked drain specialist who works in Hornsby.
What we would do
If a drain only misbehaves in heavy rain, don't just have it cleared. Ask what's causing it: stormwater getting into the sewer won't be fixed by a jetter, and the overflow it causes is a pollution problem as well as a smelly one. Fix the connection or the crack, and the wet-weather overflows should stop.