Plumber Neutral Bay

North East Plumbing is a licensed, family-run plumber serving Neutral Bay 2089 from our office at Unit 3, 878 Military Road, Mosman, a short drive along Military Road from Neutral Bay Junction. Owners James and Mitch bring 30 years of combined plumbing experience to apartments, strata buildings, houses and shops across Neutral Bay, handling blocked drains, emergency plumbing, leaks, hot water and gas fitting. Every job is quoted per job, not per hour, before any work starts.

Every job comes with:

• A licensed, insured plumber. NSW Contractor Licence 364116C, with full public liability insurance on every job.
• A Master Plumbers NSW member. All work is carried out to the Plumbing Code of Australia and AS/NZS 3500.
• A team rated 4.9 stars from 340+ Google reviews.
• A 2023 Local Business Award winning business.
• An owner-operated business. James and Mitch run the business day to day, with 30 years of combined trade experience.

More than nine in ten homes in Neutral Bay are apartments, units or townhouses. The 2021 Census counted 3,529 high density and 1,612 medium density dwellings in the suburb, compared with just 424 separate houses.

That changes the plumbing work Neutral Bay needs. A leak rarely stays inside one unit. A blockage in a shared stack can back up into every floor below it. Getting a new hot water system into a third-floor walk-up takes more planning than the same job at a freestanding house.

The sections below cover the problems you’re most likely to run into in Neutral Bay, and how each one gets fixed.

Blocked drains in Neutral Bay usually come from one of three places.

• Unit kitchens, showers and floor wastes. Grease, hair and soap build up in the branch lines that serve your unit. If water backs up in more than one unit at once, the blockage is more likely in a shared stack or main drain, which is usually common property.
• Older sewer lines under houses and blocks. Plenty of buildings from the 1920s to the 1960s still run on earthenware or cast iron drains. Tree roots find their way into the joints, especially near established street and garden trees.
• Restaurant and cafe drains around Neutral Bay Junction. Food businesses along Military Road deal with fats and grease in kitchen drains, and a blockage during service can shut a kitchen down.

You get a proper fix, not just a quick clear. The blockage is cleared with a high-pressure water jetter, then a CCTV drain camera goes in when the cause isn’t obvious, so you can see exactly what’s inside the pipe. If the line is cracked or full of roots, pipe relining repairs it from the inside without digging up a shared driveway, courtyard or garden.

More detail on our blocked drains service.

For a burst pipe, sewage overflow or suspected gas leak, call us at any hour. For North Shore emergencies we’re typically on site within 60 minutes, and you’ll get an honest arrival time when you call.

If water is running in your apartment right now:

• Turn off the water to your unit. Look for an isolation valve under the kitchen sink, in the laundry, in the bathroom or near the hot water system. In some older blocks the only shut-off is in a shared meter cupboard or at the building’s main stopcock.
• Tell your building or strata manager if water is reaching another unit or a common area, so shared valves can be accessed and neighbours below can be warned.
• Keep clear of water near power points and appliances. Don’t touch the switchboard if it’s wet.
• Call us. Stay on the line if you need help finding a valve before we arrive.

If you smell gas: don’t use light switches or naked flames, open doors and windows, turn the gas off at the meter if you can do so safely, then leave and call us. If the leak is at the street or the meter itself, call Jemena’s gas emergency line on 131 909.

The emergencies we see most often in Neutral Bay are burst braided flexi hoses under kitchen sinks and vanities, water coming through the ceiling from the unit above, sewer overflows in shared courtyards after heavy rain, and hot water systems leaking inside laundry cupboards.

More on our 24/7 emergency plumbing service.

If you can see a stain or drip from the unit above, the source is often not directly overhead. Water travels along slabs, pipes and beams before it shows up. Your plumber traces it with moisture meters, thermal imaging and pressure testing, so you know whether the cause is a pipe, a leaking shower waste or failed waterproofing, and who is responsible for the repair.

That report matters in a strata building, because it decides who pays. See our water leak detection service or read how leaks inside walls are found.

Neutral Bay apartments fit hot water systems into laundry cupboards, balconies and small plant rooms, and many interwar blocks have no lift. Before you’re quoted for a replacement, your plumber checks the space, clearances, ventilation or flueing for gas units, and how the new system will get up the stairs, so there are no surprises on the day.

We repair and replace electric storage, gas storage, continuous flow and heat pump systems. Learn more about hot water repairs, or use our guide to what size hot water system you need if you’re planning ahead.

Plenty of Neutral Bay kitchens still cook on gas, and older buildings can have ageing gas lines. Our licensed gas fitters handle leak repairs, cooktop and bayonet connections and gas hot water, and issue a gas compliance certificate for the work. See gas fitting and gas leak repairs.

With so many strata schemes in the suburb, much of our Neutral Bay work is arranged through strata managers, building managers and real estate agents. About half of all households across the North Sydney Council area rent (50.4% at the 2021 Census), so the person reporting a leak often isn’t the person approving the repair.

Who pays depends on where the fault is. As a general guide in NSW:

• The owners corporation is usually responsible for pipes that serve more than one lot, shared stacks and risers, and pipes inside walls, floors or ceilings that border common property or another lot.
• The lot owner is usually responsible for fixtures and pipework inside the unit that serve only that unit, such as tap washers, toilet cisterns and a shower’s plug and waste.

Your strata plan and by-laws have the final say, and older strata plans can define boundaries differently. Every fault gets documented with photos, and CCTV footage for drains, so your strata manager can allocate the cost quickly.

For building and strata managers, we handle common drain clearing, stack and riser repairs, central hot water plant, backflow prevention testing, and itemised quotes ready for committee approval. More on our strata plumbing service.

The houses and low-rise blocks closer to the water, including streets within the Kurraba Point Conservation Area around Hayes Street, come with their own plumbing considerations.

• Heritage controls. North Sydney Council’s conservation area controls focus on the external envelope of buildings, gardens and site structures. Visible changes such as new external pipework, downpipes or roof penetrations may need to fit those controls, so we raise it before quoting.
• No-dig drain repairs. Pipe relining lets you fix cracked or root-damaged sewer lines without excavating established gardens, sandstone paths or front fences.
• Steep blocks and stormwater. Sloping lots running down toward the harbour send a lot of water across paths and courtyards in heavy rain. Blocked pits, overflowing gutters and poor falls are common reasons water gets under doors and into lower levels. See drainage solutions and roof plumbing.