Can anyone recommend a plumber in Melbourne who can sort out a bodgy solar hot water system?

The system is:


  • Solar hot water (evacuated tubes on roof plus big tank plus gas heater) plus whole house rainwater system (charged system, 18,000 litre tanks at present) with triple filtration (installed a couple of months ago replacing a single filter before that). We use the rainwater for everything (including showers) except for three cold water taps which are all on mains. There's a grey-water diversion tank too, which we're not using.


This system was installed about 10 years ago and we've had constant problems with it. The builder's plumber has been working on it the whole time but, as an example, when they installed the triple filters the water pressure plummeted. When, after complaints from the family because there was no hot water (evidently the water going into the hot water system comes from the rainwater tanks), I had a look at it I discovered that all of the filters in the housings were still wrapped in plastic ..... I confirmed with the supplier that, yes, the plastic was supposed to have been removed before use. The filters worked much better when not wrapped in plastic. Oh, and the filters were installed on the ground between the pump and a boundary fence, so are near impossible to access. The plumber evidently removed the pump to install the filters and then put it back in front of them. And the filters aren't isolated - there's no taps to isolate them from the system so I've had to switch it all off and then remove the pressure in the system using the filter bleed buttons before I remove the filters, which is then a bastard of a job because of the difficulty of access - there isn't even room to spin the removal tool provided.

The second and third stage filters have now gone back to zero pressure - I've managed to restore some of it but there's evidently sediment issues completely blocking the second filter, probably caused by the badly designed filters installed in the downpipes. The company that made them has now gone out of business. Can anyone suggest a better option than the Leafeaters, which seem to be the only other option. I've thought about installing a pit filter near the tanks and giving up on the down tube filters altogether.