Plumber & gasfitter in Rolleston

Different council, different water

Rolleston sits in Selwyn District, not Christchurch City, and it's supplied by a different network. In practice that means supply pressure and water characteristics out here aren't the same as they are in town, and a fixture or appliance specified for a Christchurch address won't always behave the same way at a Rolleston one.

It matters most when someone brings gear from a previous house, or when a plumber who only works in the city assumes the supply will be the same. We'll check what you've actually got at the toby rather than assuming.

That check is quick: a pressure gauge on an outside tap tells us what the supply is actually delivering before we blame a fixture, a valve or the cylinder. It's part of any maintenance visit out here, and the first thing we do when someone says their shower has gone weak. More on that on the water pressure page.

Lifestyle blocks, bores and pumps

Get out past the town boundary and a good number of properties are on bore water rather than a reticulated supply. That's a genuinely different kind of plumbing, and it's the work we get called for most on the rural edges of Selwyn:

• Pump and pressure tank problems. A pump that short-cycles, won't build pressure, or runs constantly is usually a waterlogged pressure tank or a failed pressure switch rather than a dying pump — worth diagnosing before replacing anything expensive.
• Filtration. Bore water varies enormously property to property. Iron staining on fixtures and laundry, sediment chewing out tap cartridges, and hardness scaling up elements are all common. Unlike town supply, specifying a system here should start with a water test, not a catalogue — we'll tell you if that's the situation rather than selling you a cartridge and hoping. See water filtration.
• Storage tanks and their plumbing — float valves, overflow arrangements, and supply lines that were laid when the block was subdivided and never looked at since.

The new-build side

In town, Rolleston is almost entirely recent housing, so the faults are the ones every modern house has — tempering valves, relief valve discharge, PEX crimps, and warranty-period issues that may not be yours to pay for. We've written that up in detail on the Halswell page, and all of it applies here.

Gas in Selwyn

What's available varies street by street. Some newer development has reticulated natural gas; plenty of properties run bottled LPG, and out on the blocks LPG is the norm. Which one you have changes appliance sizing, bottle siting and what a conversion involves, so we'll confirm what your address actually has before quoting anything. All gas work is certifying gasfitter work, certified on completion — see certifying gasfitter.

A recent one here in Rolleston: a four-burner gas hob, running on bottled LPG. The bottle is chained to the wall, with the regulator under its cover and a copper supply line run neatly along the brickwork into the house.

Being honest about the drive — Rolleston is Zone 2

Rolleston is a genuine distance from our base in St Martins — call it thirty minutes each way. It's outside the Christchurch urban area, so it falls in Zone 2:

• Travel surcharge: $20 + GST per visit ($23.00 incl. GST), in addition to the first-hour minimum charge — so a standard weekday first hour here is $135 + GST + $20 + GST = $155 + GST. A job that needs two visits carries the surcharge twice.
• Quote visits: $50 + GST per visit ($57.50 incl. GST), travel included. If you accept the quote, the fee is deducted in full from your invoice.
• Quotes from photos and details are free, so the quote fee only applies if we need to visit the site. Quote visits aren't available for service, maintenance or unforeseen work.

Why: Jobs outside the city mean a longer drive there and back. The Zone 2 travel surcharge and quote fee cover the extra vehicle costs that come with that: additional fuel, wear and tear on the van (tyres, brakes and servicing), and the extra time on the road. Charging these costs only on the jobs that need the longer trip means we don't have to raise our rates for everyone else. Everything else is the same as in town — the first-hour minimum is $135 + GST (plus the travel surcharge), then $95 + GST an hour, and on quoted work the travel surcharge is included in the quoted price, so the quote is still the price.

For a burst pipe at two in the morning, ring and we'll tell you honestly how long we'll be. We'd rather tell you to find someone closer than have you waiting on us while water runs.