0800 772 33 99 — we cover WV5 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 Wombourne

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 drain that keeps blocking. Repeated blockages are a symptom. The survey finds the root, the stepped joint or the broken section causing them.

Buying the property. A standard structural survey does not go underground. This one does, and the report is written so it can go straight to a solicitor or be used to renegotiate.

All the reasons a CCTV survey gets commissioned

Why drains fail in Wombourne

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 village that quadrupled in size. Wombourne was a small settlement that expanded enormously through the 1960s and 70s, so most of its drainage was laid in the pitch fibre era. That pipe deforms rather than cracks – the bore closes gradually and blockages become steadily more frequent, with nothing showing at the surface until it is well advanced.

Sandstone and the Smestow valley. The ground drains freely, which is why soakaways work here. The same permeability lets fines migrate out through a defective joint, and the pipe drops into the void that leaves.

Older cottages in the village core sit on short-length Victorian clay with a joint every metre or so, and some have private drainage that predates any mains connection.

Which is why we would rather put a camera down the run than tell you what is probably wrong with it.

Who pays

Shared drainage and anything past your boundary has been Severn Trent’s since 2011. On the estates, shared runs between pairs and terraces are common.

Areas we cover

Blakeley, Giggetty, Ounsdale, Poolhouse, Smestow, Swindon and Wombourne village — WV5.

What the camera actually shows

Wombourne covers a fair spread of housing, from Blakeley, Giggetty, Ounsdale, and this applies to most of it.

CCTV view along a sound clay drain, the bore clear and the walls unobstructed

A survey is not a torch down a hole. The camera is fed the length of the run and every observation is recorded against a distance from the start.

Displaced joints show as a step or a crescent of shadow where the far pipe no longer lines up with the near one.

Open joints show a dark band all the way round, sometimes with soil visible behind.

Roots appear as fine fibres trailing in the flow, or a dense mass filling the bore – nearly always at a joint you can see behind them.

Cracks are break lines that are not visibly open, recorded by clock position.

Infiltration is water entering where no connection exists.

Every one of those carries a still image in the report, so you can see the thing being described rather than take a code on trust.

Before you build over a drain

In Wombourne – WV5 – this is one of the questions we are asked most, and the answer is usually the same across Blakeley and Giggetty.

Extensions and garden rooms in Wombourne frequently sit over a shared lateral, and Severn Trent will want position, depth and condition before agreeing a build-over.

There is a second reason to survey first, and it is worth as much as the first: a dated, coded record of the pipe’s condition before your works began ends any later argument about whether the build damaged it.

Recently built property in Wombourne

What holds for Blakeley and Giggetty holds across the rest of Wombourne. WV5 is the postcode district involved.

We survey a good deal of newer housing, and the reason is usually a warranty deadline rather than a blockage.

Drainage laid during construction is not always laid correctly, and the problems tend to surface once the ground has settled – by which time the question is whether it is still covered. A graded report with each observation positioned in metres is what makes that conversation possible.

What you get after a survey in Wombourne

In Wombourne – WV5 – this is one of the questions we are asked most, and the answer is usually the same across Blakeley and Giggetty.

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.

Why it only floods when it rains

On Wombourne property, and particularly around Blakeley, Giggetty, Ounsdale, this is the usual picture.

A drain that copes all week and backs up in a downpour is usually telling you about capacity rather than a blockage.

On combined systems, common across older Wombourne property, roof and yard water shares the pipe with everything else. Lose part of the bore to silt, roots or a displaced joint and the run still copes with normal flow – until the rain arrives.

Our surveys record water levels at intervals for exactly this reason: a section holding water where it should be running is a finding, not a detail.

Common questions

Our drains block more often than they used to — why? On Wombourne’s 1960s-70s estates that pattern usually means pitch fibre pipe that has started to deform. It is worth confirming on camera.