0800 772 33 99 — we cover ST19 from our base in Castlecroft, Wolverhampton.

Two things, both from the same van: clearing a drain that has blocked, and putting a camera down one to find out why.

What we do in Brewood

Blocked drains — cleared with high-pressure jetting rather than rods. Drain unblocking

CCTV drain surveys — graded, MSCC-coded, site plan and full video, report back the same day by NADC-certified surveyors. CCTV drain surveys

No repairs, no excavation — so no reason to find work that isn’t there.

Why people here ask for a survey

A septic tank or treatment plant. The run between the house and the tank fails like any other pipe, and it is worth ruling that out before anyone talks about replacing the tank.

No record of where anything runs. For a good many properties here the site plan the survey produces is the only accurate drawing of the drainage that has ever existed.

All the reasons a CCTV survey gets commissioned

Why drains fail in Brewood

Ground conditions decide what fails in a drain and how often, and they vary street by street. Here is what we are working with.

A conservation village with drainage to match its age. Brewood’s historic core is largely eighteenth and nineteenth century, and a good deal of its drainage was laid, altered and extended long before anyone kept records. On properties like these the site plan a survey produces is frequently the only accurate drawing that has ever existed.

Off-mains drainage is normal here, not unusual. Septic tanks, treatment plants and soakaways serve many of the outlying properties. That is a different survey with different questions, and the whole system is the owner’s responsibility.

The Shropshire Union runs through it. The canal and the surrounding farmland set the levels much of the village drains to, and falls are not always what the ground surface suggests.

That is the reason a repeat blockage here is worth looking at properly rather than clearing again – the cause is usually structural and it is usually visible.

Who pays

Where a property is on the public sewer the 2011 transfer applies. Where it is on a septic tank or treatment plant, none of it is Severn Trent’s.

Areas we cover

Bishops Wood, Brewood, Coven, Four Ashes, Gunstone and Somerford — ST19.

Same drain, same spot, every few months

Drainage across Brewood — Bishops Wood and the streets around them — follows one pattern. ST19 is what that covers.

CCTV view inside a drain showing debris resting in the bottom of the pipe, partly obstructing the bore

That pattern is worth taking seriously, because it rarely resolves itself.

The three usual causes are a joint that has moved and now catches everything passing, a section that has settled and no longer falls towards the sewer, or roots holding a joint open. All three are visible on camera and none of them are fixed by clearing.

Worth checking before you pay for anything: repeat blockages near a boundary are very often on the lateral drain, which since 2011 has belonged to Severn Trent rather than you.

Why drains block, and what they block with

It varies street by street in Brewood, but ST19 follows a recognisable pattern and Bishops Wood and Brewood are typical of it.

We can usually tell you on the phone what is likely to be in there, because the list is short.

Wipes. The most frequent single cause, and the most avoidable.

Nappies and sanitary items, which expand rather than break down.

Congealed fat, particularly on the older shallow runs common across Brewood.

Tree roots, entering through a joint that has already opened up – which makes it a pipe problem wearing a gardening disguise.

Something wrong with the pipe itself. Repeat blockages in one spot mean a defect, and that is a camera job rather than another clearing.

Roots in the drain: what is actually happening

Bishops Wood and Brewood are a fair sample of Brewood drainage, and what follows is what we find across ST19.

Root ingress accounts for 8 of the 60 defects in our reports – less common than displaced joints, but almost always found alongside them, which is the point.

Mature planting near a run is the usual setting. The mechanism is always the same: a joint opens, water escapes, roots follow the moisture in, and then thicken until they are holding the joint open themselves.

On camera it is unmistakable – fine white or brown fibres trailing in the flow, or a dense mass filling part of the bore, nearly always at a joint you can see behind it.

Clearing it restores flow. It does not close the joint, which is why it comes back.

How quickly we can get to Brewood

Brewood covers a fair spread of housing, from Bishops Wood, Brewood, Coven, and this applies to most of it.

Ring us and you will get a realistic time before you commit to anything. The variable is what is already booked in, not the distance – Brewood is inside our unblocking patch and we are through it constantly.

You speak to the person who will do the work, not a call centre, and we will give you a price on the phone before we come out.

What you get after a survey in Brewood

Four things, and they are the same whether the survey is for a purchase, a landlord or your own peace of mind.

Every accessible run on camera, so you can see the pipe rather than take our word for it.

Every defect coded to MSCC5 – the Manual of Sewer Condition Classification, 5th Edition, published by WRc. A standard means a defect is described the same way by any competent surveyor. “Joint displaced medium” has a precise definition: the pipe has moved at the joint by between one and one and a half times the wall thickness.

A condition grade per section, so an observation is separated from a problem.

A site plan showing where the drainage actually runs – for many properties the only accurate drawing that has ever existed.

The report comes back the same day, by NADC-certified surveyors.

Common questions

We are on a septic tank and it keeps backing up — can you help? Yes. The run between the house and the tank fails like any other pipe, and it is worth ruling that out before anyone talks about replacing the tank.