As the year draws to a close, resolution season arrives with its familiar cast, the fitness plans, the budgets, the decluttering, most of them abandoned by February. Allow us to nominate a different category, one where the resolutions are small, specific, cheap and genuinely keepable, and where keeping them saves real money and real midnight emergencies, your plumbing. After 25 years of January callouts that December habits caused, here are the five resolutions we would set for any Perth home, each with the reason it earns its place.
Resolution one, learn where your mains valve is, this week
The single most valuable plumbing knowledge in any household is the location and operation of the main water shut off valve at the meter, because in a burst pipe or failed hose emergency it converts an unlimited flood into a few litres, and yet a remarkable share of homeowners have never touched theirs. The resolution is ten minutes, find it, turn it, confirm the water stops, and show everyone in the house. If it is seized, stiff or weeping, get it fixed promptly, a mains valve that will not turn is a safety device on strike, and the day you discover that should not be the day you need it.
Resolution two, adopt the strainer and the jar
The two cheapest objects in plumbing prevention are a mesh strainer and an empty jar. The strainer lives in every plughole and intercepts the hair, food and debris that start most blockages. The jar lives by the stove and receives every drop of cooking fat, which then goes to the bin instead of setting inside your kitchen line one warm pour at a time. Add the bathroom rule, a bin beside every toilet so nothing but paper is ever flushed, wipes included whatever their packet claims, and you have retired the three habits behind the majority of household blockages, for the cost of a coffee.
Resolution three, respond to whispers, not shouts
Plumbing declines in sequences, silent, slow, vocal, blocked, and every stage before the last is the cheap one. The resolution is a simple behavioural change, treat the whisper as the appointment, the gurgle after flushing, the drain slower than last month, the cistern hissing at night, the tap dripping, the damp smell that comes and goes. Book the small fix within days instead of filing the symptom under later, and the year simply contains fewer disasters. From our side of the phone, the difference between clients who resolve at the whisper stage and those who wait is the difference between civilised scheduled visits and Boxing Day emergencies, same houses, different calendars.
Resolution four, give the invisible assets their annual hour
Once this year, spend a deliberate hour on the components that fail expensively and invisibly. Torch every flexi hose under every sink for rust, fraying and bulging, and replace on evidence or age, they are the leading cause of internal flooding in Australian homes. Read the badge on the hot water system and be honest about its decade, planning replacement beats enduring failure. Dye test the toilets for silent leaks. Exercise the isolation valves. And if your home is of the clay sewer generation with established trees, put a camera through the drains every couple of years, because the most expensive asset under your property deserves at least the scrutiny given to a car service.
Resolution five, choose your plumber before you need one
The worst time to choose a tradesperson is mid emergency, at midnight, with water moving, which is precisely when most people do it. The resolution is ten calm minutes now, check a licence, read reviews for patterns rather than scores, confirm genuine 24 hour availability and honest fixed pricing, and save the number. We would naturally suggest ours, licensed PL7683 and GF9443, Perth based for 25 years, on call around the clock, with the guarantee that if we cannot clear your drain it is free, but the principle outranks the plug, a decision made calmly in January will always beat the same decision made in a flooded hallway in July.
The resolution that keeps itself
Notice what these five have in common, none require willpower in February. They are one time setups and tiny habit swaps, a valve located, a strainer bought, a whisper answered, an hour scheduled, a number saved, and their payoff compounds quietly all year in the emergencies that simply never happen. That is our idea of a happy new year, and we say that as the people whose phone rings when the other kind happens. From all of us at Drains Plus, here is to a trouble free year ahead, and should your plumbing decide otherwise at any hour, you already know who to call.
If you want a sixth resolution for ambition’s sake, make it knowledge, spend one hour this year learning your own system, where the drains run, what the pipes are made of, how old the hot water unit is, which valve isolates what. An owner who knows their system reports faults precisely, makes better decisions under pressure, and gets more value from every professional visit, and the hour it takes is the best rate of return in this entire article.
