No-dig pipe repair on the Lower North Shore.
Cracked or root-damaged pipe repaired in place in Hunters Hill — no excavation, so heritage fabric, stonework and listed streetscapes stay exactly as they are.
No callout fee on eligible jobs · Free quotes
Hunters Hill was settled from 1835 and proclaimed a municipality on 5 January 1861. From 1847 the French merchant Didier Joubert brought stonemasons out from Italy to build in local sandstone, and much of that fabric is still standing and heritage listed. Excavating here is restricted, slow and in places not permitted. Relining is not the premium option in Hunters Hill — it is frequently the only one that leaves the property as it was.
Roots through mortared joints in pipe that may be over a century old, with two or three later generations spliced into the same run. The survey routinely finds more history than the owner expected.
Because what sits above the pipe cannot be replaced. This is the part of a drainage repair people do not price until an excavator is already on site.
1840s sandstone, heritage-listed houses, and gardens inside a municipality holding around 650,000 square metres of parks and reserves. None of it is reinstatable and some of it is not lawfully disturbable.
A liner goes in through an opening that already exists. Nothing above the pipe has to move.
The peninsula separating the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, on sandstone that has been moving under this drainage for a century and a half. That movement is what opened the joints in the first place.
Hunters Hill sits in the Municipality of Hunter’s Hill, postcode 2110.
Local figures sourced from: ABS 2021 Census QuickStats — Hunters Hill · Hunters Hill, New South Wales — settlement, stonemasons and heritage · Municipality of Hunter’s Hill — constituent suburbs
The oldest housing stock Voyager works on, and drainage altered, extended and patched across 150 years rather than laid once. A single property can carry three or four generations of pipe, joined wherever someone added a bathroom.
No trench, no spoil, and nothing above the pipe disturbed. The whole job runs through an existing access point.
The line is inspected end to end so the damage is located and measured. Nothing is quoted from the surface.
Roots are cut out and the pipe wall is jetted back to bare material — a liner will not bond to a coated pipe.
A resin-saturated liner is drawn into position through an existing access point and inflated against the host pipe.
The resin hardens in hours rather than days, forming a new pipe inside the old one with no joints for roots to re-enter.
Any branch lines are cut back open robotically, and a final camera pass confirms the result.
Not every damaged pipe should be relined, and we will say so. These are the cases where it genuinely wins here.
Excavation is restricted; lining changes nothing visible.
A liner unifies the whole length in one pass.
A continuous liner bridges joints movement will keep opening.
Relining costs more per metre than excavation. It is usually cheaper overall, and this is why:
| Dig and replace | Relining | |
|---|---|---|
| Excavation | Trench the full length, remove and replace the pipe, backfill | None — the work runs through an existing access point |
| What comes up | Lawn, garden, paving, driveway or slab above the line | Nothing |
| Time on site | Days on a long or deep run | Usually one day for a typical run |
| Reinstatement | Priced separately and often the larger half of the bill | Not applicable |
| Result | New pipe, with joints | A jointless liner inside the host pipe |
| Design life | Depends on material and bedding | 50 years on a correctly installed liner |
The per-metre comparison is the one that misleads. Excavation quotes routinely exclude spoil removal and reinstatement, which is where a dig job gets expensive — and on some properties the reinstatement is simply not possible at any price.
These are typical ranges across the Sydney market — not Voyager’s price list, but a realistic yardstick to judge any quote against, including ours.
| Pipe relining, per lineal metre | $450 – $800 |
| Pipe relining, typical whole job | $4,000 – $10,000 |
| Patch repair, single damaged section | $1,500 – $3,000 |
| Junction reinstatement | $300 – $600 |
| Excavate and replace, per metre | $300 – $600 |
| Driveway reinstatement after a dig job, per sqm | $100 – $200 |
| CCTV drain inspection | $250 – $550 |
| Cutting tree roots from a line | $400 – $1,200 |
Voyager prices by the job, not by the hour, so the number you approve is the number you pay. A camera survey happens before any figure is given — a quote for relining that has not looked down the pipe is a guess.
Most Hunters Hill properties that ring about relining need a camera first. We will tell you straight — including when clearing the line is the whole job.
A correctly installed liner carries a 50-year design life, and it cures in hours rather than days — so the property is back in normal use the same week rather than the same month.
A continuous liner also unifies a run that has been patched across generations — one material, one length, no junctions between vintages to fail next.
Roots come back through joints. A liner has none.
Voyager covers the whole Lower North Shore. These are the closest to Hunters Hill:
No. That is the whole point of it. The liner is drawn in through an existing access point — usually an inspection opening or shaft already on the property — and cured in place against the old pipe. On a listed 1840s sandstone property it means the stonework, the garden and the streetscape are exactly as they were, because nothing above ground is touched at all.
Across the Sydney market, relining runs about $450–$800 per lineal metre, with a typical whole job landing between $4,000 and $10,000 and a single-section patch around $1,500–$3,000. Those are market ranges rather than Voyager’s price list. Heritage restriction and run complexity. Where excavation is not permitted the comparison ends there; where it is, sandstone and listed fabric make reinstatement the dominant cost.
Per metre, no — excavation is cheaper per metre. Overall it usually is. On a heritage property the comparison often does not arise at all — where excavation is restricted there is no cheaper alternative to price against. On some properties the reinstatement is not possible at any price, which settles it entirely.
A correctly installed liner carries a 50-year design life. It outlasts what it replaced because it has no joints along its length — and joints are where roots get in, where ground movement opens a gap, and where old earthenware fails first. It also bridges offset joints permanently, which matters where the ground will keep moving and the surface above cannot be disturbed again.
A typical residential run is a single day on site, and the resin cures in hours rather than days. The camera survey happens first, either on the same visit or beforehand — nothing about a relining job should be quoted from the surface.
Most can, but not all — and we will say so rather than sell you something that will not work. A pipe that has collapsed completely, or lost so much of its shape that there is nothing left to line against, needs replacing. In Hunters Hill the host pipe is usually a good candidate: roots through mortared joints in pipe that may be over a century old, with two or three later generations spliced into the same run. The survey routinely finds more history than the owner expected.
Yes, and relining is usually the route that works. Hunters Hill was settled from 1835 with sandstone houses built from 1847 by stonemasons brought out from Italy, and much of it is heritage listed — so excavation is restricted and in places not permitted. A liner is installed through an existing access point and changes nothing visible, which generally satisfies both the pipe and the planning controls.
Through that section, yes. Roots enter at joints and cracks; a liner is continuous and seals them, so the entry point is gone. Roots can still find a different fault further along an old line, which is why the survey covers the whole run rather than only the section that failed.
Camera survey first, a fixed price agreed before the work starts, and no excavation.
Voyager Plumbing · NSW Contractor Licence 476657C
Verify with NSW Fair Trading
Page reviewed and updated 20 August 2026
