Your annual plumbing self-check.

Walk through the garden with the irrigation running. Watch for areas that are wetter than they should be, sprinklers that don't pop up, or visible leaks at connections.

Underground irrigation leaks are easy to miss until your water bill spikes. A single leaking fitting can lose hundreds of litres a day.

Photograph leaks. Small fittings you can replace yourself. Underground pipe damage needs a plumber to locate.

If you have a pool, check the pump area for drips around fittings, dampness on the slab, or unusual noises.

Summer is when the pool pump runs hardest. A slow drip now is often a failed seal or pipework — and a pool plumbing failure on a 38° weekend is expensive and inconvenient.

Photograph anything wet. Pool plumbing is its own thing — book a service if anything looks off.

Are any drains slow? Gurgling? Is there an unusual smell anywhere outside near a drain?

Summer heat stresses tree roots, which seek out moisture — including hairline cracks in old sewer pipes. The first sign is usually a slow drain or a smell.

Slow drains across multiple fixtures point to a main line issue. A CCTV inspection ($295) tells you exactly what's going on.

Find the condensate drain from your split system or ducted AC. Is it dripping where it should be, or has water been pooling somewhere unexpected?

Blocked condensate drains push water back into the unit and into the ceiling. The first sign is often a damp ceiling stain near a vent.

If you see stains or pooling, get the drain cleared. Plumber or AC technician depending on the setup.

Turn each outside tap on fully and check the wall fitting and hose connection. Then turn off and watch for drips.

Outside taps get heavy use in summer and the rubber washers are usually due. A constant slow drip wastes water and erodes the wall fitting over time.

Washers are a cheap DIY job. If the tap body is loose at the wall, call a plumber before it gets worse.

Once the worst of the leaf fall is done, gutters need a proper clean — not just a glance.

A gutter full of wet leaves in winter is dead weight that will tear off in a storm. Blocked downpipes flood gardens and undermine foundations.

DIY if you can do it safely. If not, this is a roof plumber job worth booking before the first proper storm.

When was your hot water unit last serviced? Storage units have a sacrificial anode that needs replacing every few years to stop the tank rusting from the inside.

A neglected anode means the tank rusts, then the tank fails, then you're replacing the whole unit. An anode replacement is around $200. A new tank is $2,000+.

If your storage unit is 5+ years old and has never been serviced, autumn is the time. Continuous-flow units don't have anodes but should still be serviced annually.

From a safe vantage point, look at the roof. Are flashings around vents, chimneys, and pipe penetrations intact? Are tiles or sheets visibly displaced?

Storm-season leaks usually trace back to flashing failures. Fixing in autumn is far cheaper than finding the leak through a damaged ceiling in winter.

If you see anything off, get a roof plumber up there before the first proper storm.

Walk the property after the first decent rain. Does water pool anywhere it shouldn't? Does it drain away from the house, or toward it?

Drainage problems get worse with time and become impossible to ignore in winter. Catching them in autumn means you can fix them before they damage the slab or undermine the garden.

Pooling near the house is worth investigating. Surface fixes are landscaping; subsurface issues are plumbing.

Find your main isolation valve. Turn it off, then on.

Worth re-checking before winter. If it was tight in summer, it might be seized in autumn — better to find that out now than in an emergency.

If it doesn't turn cleanly, replace it now. Five-minute job ahead of a worst-case scenario.

Find the manufacture date sticker on your hot water unit (usually on the side or back). Note the year.

Storage units typically last 10–12 years. Continuous-flow units last longer but still degrade. A unit at the end of its life will fail in winter — that's when demand is highest. Replacing on your timing is cheaper and less disruptive than replacing in an emergency.

If it's 10 years or older, photograph the sticker. You don't need to do anything today, but it's worth knowing.

Walk around the outside of the house. Look at every exposed tap and any pipe running along an external wall. Are any pipes uninsulated? Are tap handles dripping?

Exposed pipes can freeze in a hard frost. A frozen pipe expands; when it thaws, it bursts. A dripping outside tap means water is sitting in the spout — that's where freezing starts.

Fix the drip (a $20 washer in most cases, or call us). If a pipe is fully exposed and you've had frosts before, foam pipe insulation from the hardware store is a 20-minute job.

Put a few drops of food colouring into the toilet cistern (the top tank). Wait 10 minutes without flushing. Check the bowl.

If colour appears in the bowl, water is leaking through the seal — silently — 24 hours a day. Slow toilet leaks can waste 60,000 litres a year and most people never notice until the water bill arrives.

If you see colour, the inlet valve or flush seal needs replacing. Photograph the brand and model of the cistern and book a service, or DIY if you're confident.

Find your water meter (usually at the front of the property, in a pit). Identify the main isolation valve next to it. Try turning it off, then back on.

If a pipe bursts inside the house, this is the valve you need to turn off fast. If you don't know where it is, or it's seized, you can't.

If it turns easily, you're set. If it's seized or you can't find it, that's worth knowing now, not at 11pm on a Sunday.

When was your gas appliance (instantaneous hot water, ducted heater, space heater) last serviced? Check your records or any sticker on the unit.

Gas appliances need annual servicing for safety and efficiency. An unserviced heater can produce carbon monoxide. It will also run less efficiently — costing more on your gas bill.

If it's been more than 12 months, book a service. If you can't remember when it was last done, book one.

Walk around outside and look at every external drain grate — next to the laundry, around the perimeter, at downpipe outlets. Lift the grates if you can. Are they full of leaves and silt?

Blocked external drains push water back toward the house in heavy rain. The first sign is often water under the house or seeping into the laundry.

Clear visible debris. If a drain is bubbling, slow, or smells, it's worth a CCTV inspection before storm season.

From the ground or a safe vantage point, look along your gutters. Are they full of leaves? Do downpipes flow freely after rain, or back up?

Overflowing gutters dump water against external walls and into ceiling cavities. Water sitting in gutters also degrades the metal faster.

Clean if accessible and safe. If not, this is a roof plumber job — usually a couple of hundred dollars and worth doing before winter peaks.

Turn each outside tap on properly for the first time since winter. Watch for splits, weeping at the wall, or low pressure.

Frozen winter pipes can develop hairline splits that don't show until the system warms up and gets used again. Better to find them now than mid-summer.

Photograph anything weeping or splitting. Book a service if it's at the wall fitting; DIY a washer replacement if it's the tap itself.

Test any timers, pressure regulators, hose splitters, or quick-connects on garden taps.

These devices fail silently over winter from frost expansion or seal degradation. A failed pressure regulator can push too much pressure into a hose and cause a separate problem downstream.

Replace failed ones. Most are under $50 at a hardware store.

Walk through the house and look under every sink, behind the toilet, under the dishwasher, and around the washing machine. Any dampness, stains, or warped cabinetry?

Slow leaks that started during heavy winter use take a few months to make themselves visible. Spring is when they show.

Photograph anything you find. Slow leaks under cabinets rot the cabinet base — fix sooner rather than later.

Pick a two-hour window when no one is home and nothing is running — no irrigation timer, no ice maker, no dishwasher. Read the meter. Wait two hours. Read it again.

If the numbers have moved, water is being used somewhere it shouldn't be — a hidden leak. This is the cheapest leak detection method in existence.

If the meter moved, you have a leak somewhere. Book a leak detection service.

Run each shower, sink, and bath for 30 seconds and watch how fast it drains. Compare to what's normal for that fixture.

A drain that's slow now will be blocked by mid-summer. Catching it early means a $250 clear, not a $1,500 dig.

Slow drains can usually be cleared with a service call before they become emergencies.