Practical guides, written for people about to spend money on drainage rather than for search engines. Most of these answer questions we get asked on the phone several times a week.
Where a guide quotes numbers, they come from our own survey reports — 60 recorded defects across the properties we have written up — not from someone else’s article.
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Before you buy
What a homebuyer drain survey actually finds — a building survey stops at ground level. What a camera adds, what we typically find, and when in the process to book it.
How to tell pitch fibre from clay, and why it matters — the two materials fail in completely different ways, and the difference decides whether a defect is a local repair or a new pipe.
When something has gone wrong
Who owns your drain since the 2011 private sewer transfer — the rule that decides whether a blockage is your bill or Severn Trent’s, and how to work it out before you pay anyone.
Why a rodded drain blocks again in three weeks — what rodding leaves behind, what jetting does instead, and what a repeat blockage in the same spot is usually telling you.
Roots, joints and why old clay fails — displaced joints are 35 of the 60 defects in our reports. Why clay fails where it is jointed, and why roots do not break into sound pipe.
Reading a report, and building near a sewer
What the grades mean when your report says Grade C — MSCC codes, severities and DRB grades in plain English, with the definitions printed in the back of our own reports.
Build over agreements and Section 185 diversions — what Severn Trent needs before you build over a sewer, and why a manhole under a planned extension is an expensive late discovery.
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Surveys across the West Midlands, south Staffordshire, east Shropshire and north Worcestershire. Unblocking closer to home.