Same-day drain clearing on the Lower North Shore.
Blocked sinks, toilets and shared stacks cleared in Cremorne — jetted back to full bore rather than punched through, so it stays clear longer than a fortnight.
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Cremorne is 71.4% apartments across 5,124 dwellings, so most drainage here is a shared stack — and stacks block on fat and wipes rather than roots. What makes Cremorne particular is that its strata stock spans decades: interwar walk-ups, post-war blocks and modern developments often on the same street. Three eras of plumbing, three different tolerances for what gets put down them.
How people live in a suburb decides what blocks its drains. The higher the apartment share, the more of the drainage is shared stack rather than private line — and shared stacks block on what a whole column of kitchens and bathrooms puts into them.
Cremorne sits in the North Sydney Council, postcode 2090. 1.63 square kilometres overlooking Willoughby Bay, sitting between Mosman and Neutral Bay at around 85 metres elevation.
Local figures sourced from: ABS 2021 Census QuickStats — Cremorne (NSW) · Cremorne, New South Wales — Wikipedia
A drain rarely stops working without warning. These are the patterns worth acting on here — each one points at a different cause, which is what decides the fix.
The tell that it is the stack, not your bathroom. If a neighbour has it too, nothing inside your own flat will fix it.
An interwar walk-up on the same street as a modern block will show problems first, on the same load.
A greasy line holds waste against the wall, and that is what you notice weeks before flow is affected.
Fat on the stack wall, with wipes caught in it. What varies is the pipe it is sitting in — an interwar walk-up may have cast iron or earthenware that is both narrower and more fragile than the PVC in a modern block two doors down.
Most repeat blockages are a pipe problem, not a blockage problem. We look before we quote.
The California Bungalows on the remaining house blocks still carry original pipework in many cases — jointed earthenware, now around a century old. The apartment stock ranges from interwar cast iron and earthenware through to modern PVC, which is why two neighbouring buildings can fail in completely different ways.
Fat does not respond to a plunger and barely responds to a cable, so the order here usually starts with jetting.
Fat coats the pipe wall; a cable bores a hole through it and the line closes over again within weeks. Jetting scours the wall back to full bore, which is the difference between clearing a drain and cleaning it.
Shows whether the line was genuinely cleaned or merely opened — the distinction that decides if you are back in a month.
Less common in the apartment stock, but the older detached streets still see it — a cutting head takes the mass out and restores flow.
Rarely needed for a grease problem alone, but the answer where jetting reveals a damaged section underneath the build-up.
Jetting rather than cabling on a stack, because a cable opens a channel through a fat layer and leaves the rest of it in place. On the older buildings the camera matters more than usual — interwar pipework can be fragile enough that the method has to be chosen around its condition rather than the blockage.
Nobody likes ringing for a price and being told “it depends”. These are typical ranges across the Sydney market — not Voyager’s price list, but a realistic yardstick to judge any quote against, including ours.
| Clearing a simple blockage | $150 – $400 |
| Clearing a blocked main sewer line | $300 – $600 |
| High-pressure jetting | $250 – $600 |
| Cutting tree roots from a line | $400 – $1,200 |
| CCTV drain inspection | $250 – $550 |
| Pipe relining, per lineal metre | $450 – $800 |
| Pipe relining, typical whole job | $4,000 – $10,000 |
| Excavate and replace, per metre | $300 – $600 |
Voyager prices by the job, not by the hour, so the number you approve is the number you pay.
Describe what’s happening at your Cremorne property and we’ll tell you straight — including when the simple clear is the whole job.
In a building, the first thing worth knowing is whether it is only your unit. If a neighbour has it too, the fault is in the shared line and nothing you do inside your own bathroom will change it.
Stop using the fixtures on that line. Every flush and every sinkful adds to what has nowhere to go, and on a main sewer blockage that is what turns a contained problem into an overflow.
Do not pour drain chemicals down it. They rarely clear a real blockage, they make the line unsafe to inspect or work on, and caustic product sitting against an old earthenware joint does the pipe no favours.
If sewage is surfacing, treat it as urgent. That is a health issue, not an inconvenience — keep people and pets away from it and call.
If it is out of hours and getting worse, ring rather than book — Voyager runs a 24/7 line for Cremorne and the rest of the Lower North Shore. More on emergency plumbing.
Fat into the bin, not the sink, and treat ‘flushable’ wipes as not flushable. For an older block, a jetting schedule is markedly cheaper than the emergency callouts it replaces — the narrower the stack, the truer that is.
Storm season finds every drain that was never quite right. Better to know before it rains.
Which fixture, how long, and whether anything is overflowing. That is usually enough to tell how urgent it is.
Scoured back to full bore rather than opened just enough to run, which is what stops it closing over again in a month.
A camera down the cleared line shows whether this was a one-off or a pipe that will do it again.
Including when the answer is that nothing further is needed. A cleared drain with no fault is a perfectly good outcome.
A blocked drain is sometimes the symptom rather than the problem. These cover what comes next:
Voyager covers the whole Lower North Shore. These are the closest to Cremorne:
Most often for one reason here: grease in blocks of three different eras. Fat on the stack wall, with wipes caught in it. What varies is the pipe it is sitting in — an interwar walk-up may have cast iron or earthenware that is both narrower and more fragile than the PVC in a modern block two doors down. A drain that clears easily and blocks again within months is telling you the cause is still in the pipe — which is why we put a camera down a cleared line rather than leaving it at ‘it’s moving again’.
24/7, including nights and weekends — the line for Cremorne and the rest of the Lower North Shore is always answered. Severity sets the order rather than booking time: if sewage is surfacing or a main line has stopped, say so when you call and it goes ahead of routine work.
Across the Sydney market a simple blockage typically runs $150–$400 and high-pressure jetting $250–$600. Grease jobs sit toward the jetting end, because cabling through a fat layer buys weeks rather than years. Those are market ranges rather than Voyager’s price list. The age of the building more than the size of the blockage. Older stacks need a gentler method chosen around the pipe’s condition, which takes longer than clearing a modern line, and the camera that establishes it is not optional on interwar fabric. We price by the job, not the hour, and you approve the number before anything starts.
Rarely. Supermarket products are designed for a hair clog in a basin, not a fat layer coating a metre of pipe wall — they open a channel through it at best. They also make the line hazardous to work on afterwards. If a chemical has already gone down, say so before anyone opens it up.
If it is a genuine one-off — something went down that shouldn’t have — clearing it is the whole job. If a kitchen or stack line has closed over before, a camera afterwards is what tells you whether it was actually cleaned or merely opened. We would rather tell you it is fine than clear it twice.
Cremorne is 71.4% apartments, so this comes up constantly. If the line serves more than one lot it is generally common property and the owners corporation’s to arrange; if it serves only your lot it is yours. We establish which before work is authorised and deal with the strata or building manager directly — the plumber page for Cremorne covers the ownership rules in full.
In Cremorne it matters a lot. The strata stock here spans interwar walk-ups through to modern developments, often on one street, and an older stack is both narrower and less tolerant of aggressive clearing. Two buildings under identical load will fail at different times and need different methods.
Yes, and telling them apart matters — they present similarly from the surface and are fixed completely differently. A drain that only misbehaves in heavy rain is usually stormwater or ingress rather than a blockage. A camera settles it in one visit.
Voyager Plumbing was founded by Mathew Veselcic, a licensed plumber, drainer and gasfitter who has held his own NSW contractor licence since December 2016. He is the nominated supervisor on the company licence that covers the work in Cremorne, and personally accountable for it.
Free quote, a fixed price agreed before the work starts, and someone on the end of the phone at any hour.
Voyager Plumbing · NSW Contractor Licence 476657C
Verify with NSW Fair Trading
Page reviewed and updated 2 September 2026
