We survey across SY8 from our base in Castlecroft, Wolverhampton. Every section graded, every defect coded to MSCC, a site plan, the full video — and the report back the same day, by NADC-certified surveyors.
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Why drains fail in Ludlow
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 medieval town almost entirely intact, and drained accordingly. Ludlow’s grid of streets is essentially the one laid out in the twelfth century, and the drainage under it has been added to by every generation since without anyone keeping a record. On the listed and historic properties that make up much of the town, a camera is the only way to establish what is there without excavating something nobody wants excavated.
Steep ground down to the Teme and the Corve. Falls change sharply over short distances, so runs scour clean in one section and silt up in the next. Deposits collect where the gradient flattens, which is usually well away from the property that has noticed a problem.
All of it shows up on camera and none of it shows from a manhole cover, which is the practical reason a survey is worth more here than an opinion.
Why people here ask for one
Most often it is a septic tank or treatment plant, or a drain that keeps blocking. All the reasons a survey gets commissioned
Areas we cover
Ashford Carbonel, Bromfield, Caynham, Ludlow town centre, Onibury, Richards Castle and Stanton Lacy — SY8.
Ludlow sits inside our survey radius but outside our drain unblocking radius, so we cover it for planned survey work rather than emergency call-outs.
A question we get asked here
Our property is listed and in a conservation area. Then a survey is very likely the only practical option. Nothing is dug, nothing is disturbed, and you finish with a plan of a system nobody has ever drawn.
What you get after a survey in Ludlow
Drainage across Ludlow — Ashford Carbonel and Bromfield and the streets around them — follows one pattern. SY8 is what that covers.
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.
Extending a property in Ludlow
Ludlow covers a fair spread of housing, from Ashford Carbonel, Bromfield, Caynham, and this applies to most of it.
The expensive version of this always runs the same way: plans drawn, quotes accepted, foundations marked out, and then somebody lifts a cover in the middle of where the extension is going.
If you intend to build over a public sewer or lateral drain, or within three metres of one, you need Severn Trent’s agreement. Two things catch people out after the 2011 transfer: the pipe down your own garden may be a public sewer if it serves more than one property, and the length beyond your boundary transferred as well.
They will want to know where the pipe runs, how deep it is, what condition it is in and where the chambers are. That list is a description of a survey with a drainage plan, which is why it is worth doing at design stage rather than after.
Recently built property in Ludlow
In Ludlow – SY8 – this is one of the questions we are asked most, and the answer is usually the same across Ashford Carbonel and Bromfield.
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.
Reading a survey of your Ludlow drainage
Ludlow covers a fair spread of housing, from Ashford Carbonel, Bromfield, Caynham, and this applies to most of it.
Reports confuse people because they mix two kinds of entry and only one is a problem.
Observations describe what is there – a junction, a chamber, a change of pipe material, the water level. In our surveys these outnumber defects by roughly three to one, and a tidy system with nothing wrong still generates a page of them.
Defects describe something wrong, and carry a severity. It is the severity, not the presence of a code, that matters.
Across every section we have graded, two thirds came back at the top grade. A long report is not automatically bad news.
What it costs
You get a price on the phone before we come out, so there are no surprises when we arrive.
We do not carry out repairs, relining or excavation. That is worth knowing when you are comparing quotes, because most firms who survey your drains also quote for fixing them
- and when a survey says a section is failing, they are the ones who benefit. We are
not, which is also why we are comfortable telling you when a survey comes back clean.
If the blockage turns out to be on Severn Trent’s side of the boundary, we will say so rather than invoice you for it.
Nearby: Shrewsbury · Bridgnorth · Kidderminster Coverage: Areas we cover across Shropshire
Talk to the person who will do the work.
Surveys across the West Midlands, south Staffordshire, east Shropshire and north Worcestershire. Unblocking closer to home.