Same-day drain clearing on the Lower North Shore.
Blocked sinks, toilets, showers and main sewer lines cleared in Lane Cove — with a camera down the line so you find out what caused it, not just that it moved.
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Lane Cove filled out after the Second World War as a suburb of houses, and 62.4% of its 5,546 dwellings are now flats. That is the problem in one sentence: modern density connected into drainage infrastructure that was sized and laid for detached housing. Add bushland, creeks and steep ground through roughly 16% of the municipality held as public recreation land, and you get root pressure on the older half and load pressure on the newer.
How people live in a suburb decides what blocks its drains. A split like this one is why no assumption holds across the suburb — the same fault means something different depending which type of property it is in.
Lane Cove sits in the Municipality of Lane Cove, postcode 2066. On a peninsula at the northern side of Port Jackson where the Lane Cove River opens, with bushland, creeks and steep ground throughout.
Local figures sourced from: ABS 2021 Census QuickStats — Lane Cove · Lane Cove, 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.
Post-war drainage reaches the end of its life at the same time. Neighbours following each other is normal here.
Creeks and reserves run close to the built areas, and root systems do not stop at the boundary.
In the apartment stock that points at the stack rather than any one bathroom.
Post-war house drainage reaching the end of its life, or a loaded stack in one of the newer blocks. Where bushland and creeks run against the housing, root intrusion into those seventy-year-old joints is the common finding.
Most repeat blockages are a pipe problem, not a blockage problem. We look before we quote.
Post-war housing means drainage that went in as one generation and is now ageing together — around seventy years old across large parts of the suburb. The apartment stock sits on newer PVC, so what is under a property depends almost entirely on when that particular block was built.
Which of these a job needs depends entirely on the property, which is why we look before quoting.
Shows what caused the blockage and whether the pipe is damaged. The step that stops you paying twice.
Scours the pipe wall back to full bore rather than punching a hole through a build-up.
A cutting head removes the root mass itself. It restores flow, but roots grow back through the same opening.
A new liner cured inside the old pipe, sealing the joints roots came through. No excavation, so nothing above the pipe comes up.
The method follows the building age more than the symptom. On post-war house drainage a camera after clearing is worth having, because pipe of that vintage failing in one place is usually a signal about the rest of the run. On the apartment stacks, jetting restores the bore properly where a cable will not.
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 Lane Cove property and we’ll tell you straight — including when the simple clear is the whole job.
Note which fixtures are affected and whether any neighbour has the same thing. In a suburb as mixed as Lane Cove that is what narrows down whether the fault is yours alone.
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 Lane Cove and the rest of the Lower North Shore. More on emergency plumbing.
If the house is post-war and the line has blocked once, get it looked at rather than waiting for the second time. Whole streets here were laid together and tend to fail together.
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.
Jetting, cutting or a machine, chosen by what the line is doing — not by what is quickest to bill.
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 Lane Cove:
Most often for one reason here: apartments layered over a house-scale network. Post-war house drainage reaching the end of its life, or a loaded stack in one of the newer blocks. Where bushland and creeks run against the housing, root intrusion into those seventy-year-old joints is the common finding. 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 Lane Cove 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, jetting $250–$600, root cutting $400–$1,200 and a CCTV inspection $250–$550. Those are market ranges rather than Voyager’s price list. Building age more than anything else. Post-war pipe failing in one spot is usually a signal about the whole run, so the camera changes what a sensible repair looks like — patching a line that is failing generally is money spent twice. We price by the job, not the hour, and you approve the number before anything starts.
Rarely, and it can make things worse. Caustic product does not shift a root mass or a collapsed section, it sits in the line where it is a hazard to work on, and against an aged earthenware joint it does the pipe no favours. If a chemical has already gone down, tell us before anyone opens the line.
If it is a genuine one-off — something went down that shouldn’t have — clearing it is the whole job. If the same line has blocked before, a camera tells you whether this is maintenance or a repair being postponed. We would rather tell you it is fine than clear it twice.
Lane Cove is 62.4% 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 Lane Cove covers the ownership rules in full.
Possibly. Lane Cove filled out after the Second World War, so large parts of the suburb have drainage that went in as one generation and is now around seventy years old. When properties on a street start failing, neighbours frequently follow within a few seasons. A camera tells you where yours actually sits rather than leaving it to chance.
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 Lane Cove, 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
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Page reviewed and updated 2 September 2026
