Blocked drains

What to do right now

If it is backing up into the house, stop using water in the property and ring rather than send a message. Do not keep flushing to see if it clears, because that is how it ends up on the floor. If it is a toilet, do not add drain cleaner on top of a full bowl. That does not shift a blockage further down the line and it makes the job unpleasant for whoever has to put an arm in it.

If you have a gully trap outside and it is overflowing, that tells us the blockage is past that point, out toward the street. Worth looking before you ring so you can tell us.

What causes it

Inside the house it is usually fat, hair or something that should not have gone down the toilet. Wipes are the common one now, including the ones sold as flushable. They do not break down and they catch on anything.

Outside, it is far more often tree roots, a sagged pipe, or a section of old pipework that has broken up. Those are different problems with different fixes. A blockage caused by roots will come back, because the roots are still there and the crack they came through is still there.

What we will ask you on the phone

Which fixtures are affected, whether it is one or all of them, whether there is a gully trap overflowing outside, roughly how old the house is, and whether this has happened before. Those four answers usually tell us whether we are bringing a plunger or a jetter, and that saves you a return visit.

How we clear it

Small blockages come out with a plunger or an auger. Anything more solid, or roots, needs a jetter. High pressure water cuts through root mass and scours the pipe wall properly rather than punching a hole through the middle of the blockage and leaving the rest sitting there. We carry the gear for both.

If the drain will not clear, or it clears and we can feel the pipe is wrong, we will say so rather than keep charging you to try.

Blocked toilets are usually a drain problem

People ring about a blocked toilet and expect it to be a five minute job on the toilet itself. Nearly always the toilet is fine and the blockage is in the drain outside the building. That is why a blocked drain call is priced the way it is, and why we would rather be straight about it before we come out than after.

When it keeps happening

A drain that blocks more than once in a year is telling you something. Clearing it again treats the symptom. Putting a camera down tells you whether the pipe itself has failed, and then you can make an informed call about fixing it properly rather than paying to clear it every winter.

The camera work is a separate service and we would usually suggest it after the second blockage, not the first.

What we cannot do

We will not dig up your drive on a hunch. If a repair needs excavation, we locate the fault first so the hole goes in one place. And we do not do gasfitting, so if your problem turns out to involve a gas appliance you need a registered gasfitter for that part.