What's different about St Marys
A renting suburb
52.6% of homes were rented in 2021, 26.6% owned with a mortgage and 17.9% owned outright. If you rent, the owner decides on a new unit.
Townhouses and semis
51.2% of homes were separate houses, but 30.0% were townhouses, semis or terraces and 18.5% apartments. Shared walls and strata are common here.
Penrith's heat
St Marys is 46 km west of the CBD in the City of Penrith, the council area shaded zone 6 on the ABCB map. Loggers at 120 sites across the city read up to 52 degrees on 4 January 2020.
Between two creeks
South Creek forms the western boundary and Ropes Creek runs to the east. St Marys has a long industrial history, including tanneries and munitions, and a Lang Park memorial honours its wartime munitions workers.
Renting in St Marys: getting heating or cooling sorted
If there's no air conditioner, or it's stopped working, put it to the agent in writing and keep a copy. A new unit is the owner's call, and in a strata townhouse the owners corporation may need to approve it too.
If there is a unit, report faults early rather than in the first heatwave. A fault is far easier to deal with in spring than in the middle of a heatwave. The owner can arrange a service or a repair.
What you can do, and what the installer does
You can
- Clean or rinse the filters as the manual says. Mitsubishi Electric suggests every 2 weeks; check your own manual.
- Keep the outdoor unit clear of washing, bins and plants so it gets air.
- Check the remote's mode, set temperature and batteries before reporting a fault.
- Check the switchboard to see if the breaker has tripped, and switch off at the isolator if the unit's acting up.
Leave to a licensed installer
- Anything to do with refrigerant, including leaks. That's ARC-licensed work.
- Electrical repairs and new circuits.
- Cleaning inside the indoor unit, which Mitsubishi Electric says owners should never attempt.
- Fixing a leaking drain line or a noisy outdoor unit.
What we'd do
What we'd do in St Marys
If we owned a place here, we'd size for Penrith-area afternoons and book a service each spring. If we rented, we'd keep the filters clean and report problems in writing before summer, not during it. Owners and agents can send us the job: licence-checked local installers who do that kind of work will see it, and only the one who takes it gets the contact details. If nobody near St Marys takes it within 48 hours, installers further away in NSW may see it too.
