The Zebra van, in your street
Blocked drains?
Same or next-day service to South Yarra — we'll confirm your window when you call. We find the real cause on camera, fix it at a fixed price you approve first, and back with our lifetime labour warranty.
A quick way to tell what you're dealing with: one slow fixture is usually a local blockage — hair in a shower waste, food scraps in the kitchen sink. But if two or more fixtures gurgle or back up together, the blockage is in the main drain that serves them all, and that's a call-us problem, not a plunger problem. Skip the supermarket drain chemicals either way — they can attack older pipework, they won't touch tree roots, and they make the line hazardous to work on.
Tell us what's blocked. Our team calls back to confirm a time, usually within 30 minutes during business hours. Drain overflowing right now? Call us instead — it's faster.
Or call 03 4052 7746Thanks — our team will call you back shortly to confirm a time.
South Yarra runs from grand Victorian terraces and Edwardian villas around the Domain to art deco flats and 1960s walk-ups closer to Chapel Street. Anything built before 1920 was plumbed in original earthenware, jointed every couple of feet, while the interwar blocks got glazed clay. The land slopes down to the Yarra, and a century of settling hasn't been kind to those joints.
Add the mature plane trees along Toorak Road and Domain Road and you get the classic South Yarra call: a drain that gurgles for a week, blocks, gets plunged, then blocks again a few months later. Roots find a joint, and they keep coming back to it.
The good news: our CCTV camera finds the exact spot, the jet blaster cuts the roots out without digging, and if a section has genuinely failed we locate it to the centimetre and quote a fixed price to renew just that bit — not the whole line.
What we found: the camera went down the shared sewer serving the block’s apartments and found two problems stacked on top of each other. The original cast iron had corroded so heavily inside that the bore had closed to a fraction of its size — rough, rusted walls that caught everything that flowed past, which is why the block kept blocking no matter how many times the line was cleared. And at ten metres, where the cast iron joined the original clay, tree roots had forced their way into the junction and matted right across the pipe.
What we did: excavated beside the block’s footings, cut out around three metres of failed cast iron and replaced it with new sewer-grade PVC, rebuilt the root-affected junction with a watertight connection, and installed a sewer overflow relief point — so if the sewer ever surcharges again, it spills safely outside at ground level instead of backing up into the ground-floor apartments.
The proof: the line was jetted and re-camera'd on completion — full bore restored, clean junction, clear run — then the trench was backfilled and the ground reinstated.
On site: twelve hours with two plumbers across the camera day and the dig — the depth counter read 10.03 metres at the root junction.
Details come straight from the attending plumber’s job notes and our job records. Client names and addresses stay private.
A CCTV camera goes down the line and finds the blockage and its cause — tree roots, grease, a cracked clay pipe. You watch the screen with us. No guesswork, no exploratory digging.
One price for the whole fix, quoted before any work starts. Not an hourly rate that rewards slow work. If the job turns out harder than expected, that's our problem, not your bill.
High-pressure jet blasting clears most blockages on the spot, and the camera goes back in to prove the line is open — you watch it with us. Our workmanship is backed by our lifetime labour warranty. But if the camera shows the pipe itself has failed, clearing it again and again just rents your drain back to you. That's when we quote a full or partial renewal — fixed price, your call.
We carry the full commercial drain kit on every van, and we use it in a strict order — gentlest tool first, working up only if the blockage demands it. That's how you avoid paying for a jet blast when a plunge would have done, and how your pipes avoid unnecessary punishment.
Down the pipe first, before anything else. We find the blockage, what's causing it and what the pipe is made of — you watch the screen with us.
An electronic locator traces the camera head from above ground, marking exactly where your drains run and how deep — to the centimetre.
For fixture-level blockages — toilets, sinks, showers — a commercial-grade plunge is often all it takes. The gentlest fix comes first.
A spinning chain head that knocks scale, roots and hardened build-up off the pipe walls at high speed — so the jetter can flush the line clear.
High-pressure water cuts through tree roots and scours the pipe wall clean end to end — then the camera goes back in to prove it.
No tool fixes a collapsed pipe. That's when we quote a full or partial renewal — fixed price, one dig, done once.
Most drain "quotes" are a guess from the gully trap. Ours starts with a camera in the pipe, because you shouldn't pay anyone to find out what the problem is by digging.
“We had an urgent blocked drain at our place in Hawthorn and water was starting to back up. Called Zebra Plumbing and they were quick to organise a same-day plumber. The plumber arrived on time, explained what was causing the blockage…”
Cass N · Google review · blocked drain, Hawthorn
“Fantastic service from Zebra Plumbing in Toorak. We had a nasty sewer blockage and the outside gully trap drain was backing up with bad smells. The plumber arrived when promised, located the cause and cleared the blocked drain properly.”
“Had a blocked drain at my home in Richmond and called Zebra Plumbing — Jayden sorted the booking over the phone quickly and got someone out the same day. Gary came out, diagnosed the issue fast, explained what was causing it and had it cleared without any drama…”
Zebra Plumbing was founded by Byron and Amy — brother and sister — who believed Melbourne deserved a plumber that quotes honestly, turns up on time and stands behind the work — backed by our lifetime labour warranty. The zebra van you'll see in your driveway is the same one in the photo.
The team you'll be dealing with:
Jet blasting clears most blocked drains without a shovel touching the ground. But when the camera shows the pipe itself has collapsed, cracked or been crushed by roots, every clear is temporary — and you pay for each one. The honest fix is to renew the line: replace just the failed section (a partial renewal) or the whole run (a full renewal) with new pipe that roots can't get into. Where the pipe suits it, relining repairs the line from the inside — no trenching at all.
The camera finds the failure and the locator marks it to the centimetre — 12 metres down the line, before anyone digs.
What was under the lawn: century-old earthenware, shattered at the joint by tree roots. No amount of clearing fixes this pipe.
New PVC laid and set in concrete. Roots can't enter it, and the work carries our lifetime labour warranty.
Photos from recent Zebra drainage renewals in Melbourne's inner suburbs, including a full sewer renewal in South Yarra and a boundary trap replacement.
Where the pipe suits it, relining rebuilds the failed section from the inside — a resin liner cured hard against the old pipe wall, with no trench through your garden or driveway. The camera tells us whether relining or replacement is the right fix, and you see that footage before you decide.
Here's the part most people only learn mid-emergency: the pipes on your side of the connection point are the property owner's to maintain. The water authority and council look after the mains — everything from your home to where it joins them is yours. That's the stretch we inspect, clear and renew.
And what actually blocks them? After hundreds of Melbourne drains, it's nearly always one of these six — and the camera tells us which within minutes of arriving. If the problem turns out to be on the authority's side of the line, we'll tell you straight and point you to the right people.
Poured down the kitchen sink hot, it sets in the pipe like candle wax — then catches everything that follows.
Binds with soap scum in shower and bath lines into ropes strong enough to need a machine to shift.
Wipes — even the ones labelled “flushable” — sanitary products and paper towel. None of them break down.
In through the joints of older pipes chasing moisture, thickening every season until nothing gets past.
Washed into stormwater lines and broken gullies, settling where the pipe flattens out.
When the pipe itself gives way, no clearing fixes it — that's a renewal, priced fixed before we start.
Inside or outside, sewer or stormwater, modern PVC or hundred-year-old pipe — every drainage line on your property is covered, with the right gear for each.
Why old pipes keep blocking: this cast iron drain had scaled almost completely shut — the opening left was smaller than a golf ball. Different pipe materials fail differently, which is why the camera goes down before anything else.