Hot Water Systems in Underwood

Jim Monger Plumbing and Gas repairs, replaces and installs gas, electric and heat pump hot water systems, and Underwood is in our service area, with our base at Victoria Point. In the 2021 Census, 47.4% of occupied homes here carried a mortgage and 27.3% were rented, so the person ringing about a cold shower may be paying off the house or looking after it for someone else. Either way the question is the same: which repair or replacement suits the people in the home and the spot it has to go. The notes below cover what to check before you buy, and what to tell us when you call.

A cold shower does not always mean a new tank. Energex lists running out after heavier use than usual, a faulty system or thermostat, and a fault with the receiver in the meter box among the causes. So describe the fault when you ring, and ask whether a repair would do before anyone talks about a new unit.

Underwood households average 3.1 people against 2.9 across Logan, and only 15.2% hold one person against 20.2%. With 55.2% of families being couples with children, against 44.9%, the likely peak is several showers close together, so raise that before anyone repeats the old tank size. Bedrooms will not settle it: homes with four or more went from 49.0% in 2011 to 55.1% in 2021, and a spare room uses no hot water, so ask for a size based on who lives there now. Energex says an undersized system could run short and sizing must suit any economy tariff, and Tariff 31 runs around 10pm to 7am, so a home near that 3.1 average should check its power bill before settling on a tank.

Attached homes change the fuel question: semi-detached, terrace and townhouse dwellings roughly doubled from 145 in 2011 to 298 in 2021, about one occupied home in seven. Energex says a heat pump can make about as much noise as a medium-sized air conditioner, so in one of those homes, weigh the shared wall and the neighbour’s windows before settling on one. With no quiet spot, ask about electric and gas units, as we work on all three.

Slacks Creek is the other site question, with about 2.2 km mapped inside Underwood, and since about 1.6 km of it is intermittent, a dry channel is no reason to skip the check. Near that corridor, look up your property report in the Logan Flood Portal before a unit goes at ground level. About 9% of the suburb falls in the Brisbane drainage basin and the rest in the Logan-Albert, so go by your own report, not the suburb name. Underwood’s Millers Road gauge recorded 678 mm in the February 2022 event. That is rainfall, not a flood record, so use it only as a prompt to look at yard drainage and unit height. If a flood does reach a gas unit, Queensland Government says the installation and appliances need inspection by a licensed gasfitter before use.

Hard water need not be the first suspect: Logan Water lists Underwood in its Springwood High zone, and partly in Springwood Low, and its 2024/25 Springwood-wide hardness results averaged 141.25 mg/L. The highest was 199.5 mg/L, just under the 200 mg/L where Council’s "Hard" band starts, so do not rule scale out: ask about the tank’s condition once size and position are sorted. Advice from over the boundary may not carry across, as Eight Mile Plains, Kuraby and Rochedale sit in Brisbane City and are not on Logan Water’s zone list.