We survey across SY1 to SY3 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 Shrewsbury
What is under the ground matters more than the age of the house. These are the conditions behind most of what we find here.
A medieval town inside a river loop. The Severn wraps almost entirely around the old centre, and the town floods – regularly and seriously. For drainage that means two things: a high water table producing infiltration through any open joint, and a system that surcharges readily when the river is up and outfalls back up.
A very old core and unrecorded pipework. The centre has drainage of every period, altered by each of them. On the older properties nobody knows what runs where until a camera goes down, which is why so many Shrewsbury surveys are commissioned for the site plan as much as the condition report.
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.
Why people here ask for one
Most often it is a survey after flooding, or no record of where anything runs. All the reasons a survey gets commissioned
Areas we cover
Bayston Hill, Bicton Heath, Castlefields, Copthorne, Harlescott, Meole Brace, Monkmoor, Radbrook and Shrewsbury town centre — SY1 to SY3.
Shrewsbury 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
We flooded last winter — is a survey any use? Yes. It establishes whether water came up through the drainage or in over the ground, and whether anything was damaged. Insurers ask that question.
If it keeps blocking in Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury covers a fair spread of housing, from Bayston Hill, Bicton Heath, Castlefields, and this applies to most of it.
A drain that has blocked twice in a season is telling you something structural, and clearing it a third time treats the symptom.
Rodding punches a hole through. Flow returns and the water goes away, but a 100 mm pipe with a 30 mm channel rodded through it is carrying a fraction of its capacity, with the rest of the obstruction still sitting there.
Jetting works on the whole bore. The nozzle scours the pipe wall as it is drawn back, follows bends that rods will not, and takes the run back towards its actual diameter.
Then put a camera down the same run. Standing water hides everything, so the survey is worth doing once the pipe is clear – which is why we do both in one visit.
Drainage for business premises
We cover SY1 and SY3, and this comes up often enough on Shrewsbury property to be worth setting out properly. Bayston Hill and Bicton Heath see it as much as anywhere.
The commercial version of a blocked drain is rarely just a blocked drain – it is a closed kitchen or a yard that cannot be used.
Grease, silt and volume are the three differences from domestic work, and all three respond better to a scheduled jetting and survey than to being left until they stop the site. We work on Shrewsbury commercial premises on both bases.
Surface water, foul, or both?
Bayston Hill and Bicton Heath are a fair sample of Shrewsbury drainage, and what follows is what we find across SY1 and SY3.
Worth knowing which system you are dealing with, because it changes who is responsible and what a blockage means.
Foul takes waste from the house. Surface water takes rain from roofs and hard standing. Combined takes both, which is what a great deal of older Shrewsbury drainage does.
A gully overflowing only in heavy rain points at the surface water side, or at a combined run that has lost capacity. A toilet backing up in dry weather points at the foul side. Our reports record the use of every section, because a wrong connection – foul into surface water, or the reverse – is a finding in its own right.
Whose drain is it in Shrewsbury?
In Shrewsbury – SY1 and SY3 – this is one of the questions we are asked most, and the answer is usually the same across Bayston Hill and Bicton Heath.
Worth settling before money changes hands, because for a good proportion of blockages the answer is Severn Trent and they will attend their own assets at no charge.
Since 1 October 2011, private sewers and lateral drains connected to the public system transferred to the water and sewerage company. The test is two questions: does the pipe still serve only your property, and is it still inside your boundary? If both are yes, it is yours. If either is no – it is shared, or it runs past the boundary – it is very probably theirs.
We will tell you if that is what we find rather than invoicing you for it.
South Staffs Water supplies the drinking water across much of this area but does not handle sewerage. For drainage, Severn Trent is the right number.
Nearby: Telford · Newport · Market Drayton Coverage: Areas we cover across Shropshire
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Surveys across the West Midlands, south Staffordshire, east Shropshire and north Worcestershire. Unblocking closer to home.