Updated October 2026
Ormiston is the small, old, leafy suburb between Cleveland and Wellington Point, with the college, the heritage house and some of the most established gardens in Redland City. It also has the most reliable root-intrusion profile in the city, for reasons that are not complicated. Redlands Blocked Drains is a local referral service. We put you in touch with QBCC-licensed local drain plumbers who service Ormiston.
Why Ormiston drains block
Two things, and they work together.
The pipe is old. Ormiston has been built on and connected for a long time, so a great deal of jointed vitrified clay and earthenware sewer and stormwater line is still in the ground, laid in short sections with a joint every metre or so. Decades of ground movement have opened those joints up, and an open joint weeps.
The trees are large. Ormiston is defined by big established figs, eucalypts, melaleucas and mature garden plantings on generous blocks. Fine feeder roots find exactly the moisture an open joint releases, thicken inside the pipe where there is air and nutrient, and grow into a mat that catches paper and waste until the drain stops.
This is why Ormiston drains tend to block on a cycle of months rather than years, and why clearing one without cameraing it is usually paying for the same job twice.
What the answer is, and what it is not
The honest answer here is to fix the pipe and leave the tree alone, and in the Redlands that is not just good manners.
Most of the mainland sits inside the state's koala habitat area and koala priority area mapping under the Planning Regulation 2017, where interfering with koala habitat inside a koala priority area is prohibited development and outside one is assessable development. The Nature Conservation koala conservation plan applies its own sequential clearing rules and requires a koala spotter when clearing koala habitat trees above a set trunk diameter. On top of that, the council runs an environmental significance overlay in the Redland City Plan and a local law protecting vegetation on private property.
So nobody on this site will offer to cut your trees down, grind out a stump or trench a root barrier through a protected root zone. What a plumber will do is cut the roots out of the pipe with jet blasting and then reline the damaged section so there is no open joint left to invade. The drain stops blocking and the garden stays as it is.
The council's three-step test
Redland City Council publishes a short diagnostic, and it costs nothing.
- One fixture slow and the rest of the house fine means the problem is most likely in your home's plumbing.
- The overflow relief gully overflowing while no water is being used on the property means the blockage is likely to be in the council's sewer main. Clear any obstruction, check the grate moves freely, then contact the council.
- An inspection opening that holds water or drains slowly while an indoor tap runs means contact the council. Dry means the house plumbing, so call a plumber.
The sewer mains in the sewered parts of the Redlands belong to Redland City Council, through its water and wastewater business, City Water (previously Redland Water). Your own drain line, from the house to the connection point, is yours, and the council states the inspection opening is the owner's to install and maintain. On an Ormiston block it is very often buried. The full guide covers the reimbursement path.
What it costs
A standard clear typically costs $150 to $400. Root clearing typically runs $250 to $600. A CCTV inspection runs $249 to $600, or $350 to $900 combined with jetting. Relining typically runs $3,000 to $8,000 or more depending on length and depth. Weigh that against a $300 clear every nine months that never ends, and the arithmetic usually favours relining. You get a price before any work starts.
Frequently asked questions
My drain blocks every winter. Is that the trees?
Almost certainly. Roots are most active in the warm, wet months, and a line with root intrusion gets progressively worse through each wet season. Camera footage confirms it.
Can I have the tree removed instead of relining the pipe?
Not through this site. Tree work in the Redlands is a permit question, often with an answer of no, and the contractor confirms what is required before quoting. Relining solves the drain problem without raising it.
Is my pipe clay or PVC?
In most of Ormiston, clay in the older sections, with PVC in anything replaced since. A camera tells you in minutes, and the material is the best predictor of whether this recurs.
Does relining damage the tree?
No. The liner goes in through an existing access point, nothing is excavated, and the roots that are cut are the ones inside the pipe.