Leaking tap repairs in Leongatha homes

Small drip, bigger cost

A dripping tap wastes a lot of water over a year. On town water that shows on the South Gippsland Water bill; on tank water it empties the tank and keeps the pump cycling. A dripping hot tap wastes heated water too. And a tap leaking behind the wall can rot framing and lift tiles for months before anyone notices.

Old-style taps and mixers

Older taps with separate hot and cold handles use rubber washers on a jumper valve. When the washer wears, or the brass seat underneath is pitted, the tap drips. We replace the washer and reface the seat so the new washer seals. Quarter-turn taps and single-lever mixers use ceramic cartridges instead, which wear or crack. We replace the cartridge with the correct part for the brand, or recommend a new tap when parts are no longer made.

Shower taps and wall leaks

Shower and bath taps sit inside the wall. A dripping shower head usually means a worn washer or cartridge. Water staining on the other side of the wall, or loose tiles around the taps, suggests a leak in the tap body or its connection, which needs fixing before it damages the wall.

Garden taps

Outside taps get knocked, frozen and left half-on. Common faults are worn washers, leaking spindles and broken backflow fittings. If a garden tap leaks where it meets the wall, water can run inside the brickwork, so we repair or replace the fitting properly.

Repair or replace

If the tap is in good condition and parts are available, repair is the sensible choice. If it is corroded, the handle is loose or you are updating the bathroom anyway, a new tap may be better value. We give you both options.

Leongatha pipes, hill-country clay and South Gippsland Water

Leongatha sits on the rolling dairy country between the Strzelecki Ranges and the Tarwin River flats, and the ground under most of the town is heavy clay that goes greasy in a wet winter and hard and cracked by late summer. That seasonal swelling and shrinking is what pulls apart rigid earthenware sewer joints, lets tree roots into old lines and tips stormwater pits out of level. The older streets around the town centre, Bair Street and the hospital precinct still have plenty of houses with galvanised or copper water services and clay sewer branches, while the newer estates on the edges of town were plumbed in PVC and cross-linked polyethylene.

South Gippsland Water owns the mains, the water meter and the sewer up to each property's connection point. Everything on your side of that point belongs to the owner, must be worked on by a licensed plumber, and needs a compliance certificate where the Victorian rules call for one. Outside the sewered area, on farms and lifestyle blocks, homes run on rainwater tanks, pressure pumps, septic systems and bottled LPG, all of which we service. When a fault is on the authority's side, we tell them and show them the evidence.

How a Leongatha plumbing job gets priced

For a straightforward repair, the plumber who turns up looks at the fault, tells you what has failed and what the fix involves, and gives you the figure there and then. Nothing is started until you agree. Larger jobs, such as replacing a hot water unit, digging up a broken sewer, re-running a farm water line or plumbing a renovation, get a written quote by email after the inspection. That quote names the parts by make and model, splits the labour into stages, says who handles excavation and reinstatement, and lists the compliance certificate and warranties that go with the work.

There are no hourly rates or call-out figures on this website, on purpose. One Leongatha drain clears in a quarter of an hour; the next turns out to be a cracked earthenware joint full of roots under a concrete path. One hot water swap is like for like; the next needs a bigger electrical circuit, a new tempering valve or a different spot for a heat pump. Looking first and pricing second is the only honest way to do it.