Drain Unblocking in London and the Home Counties

Blocked drains are an inconvenience and can cause flooding in some cases. While plumbers may be able to unblock some internal pipes, it takes a specially equipped engineer to clear external drains. They’re able to remove the blockage and investigate its underlying cause. With a large team of drain clearance experts, we’re able to investigate the blockage before choosing the most suitable drain unblocking approach for the job.

We can clear any blockage, no matter its size or origin. If we discover the blockage was a result of a fault in your drainage system, we can provide a quote for the repairs. Our blocked drain specialists respond to domestic and commercial bookings across London and the Home Counties.

We will try to assess the blockage with a camera before deciding on the best approach. Our drain clearance methods include:

The most common method of drain clearance is with high-pressure water jetting equipment. It works by breaking the material that’s built inside the system, which it then flushes to open the path for wastewater. It has the benefit of cleaning the inside of the pipe at the same time. Our jetting equipment can negotiate bends and be fitted with different nozzles depending on the nature of the blockage.

Due to the high water pressure, we only use jetting equipment for unblocking drains that are external (secondary), and not the internal (primary) ones found within your property.

Used manually to break up the debris by hand, drain rods are strong and flexible. They can prove useful when we need to unblock drains from upstream or if water jetting isn’t working. Although drain rods are rarely the first option, they’re still a useful part of an engineer’s toolkit and an important part of our drain unblocking service.

Drain rodding is best left to the professionals. We’ve sometimes been called to unblock drains, only to notice rods left in pipes because of failed DIY attempts at drain clearance. Removing them from pipes in these situations can be difficult!

We can use our suction tanker service to pump the wastewater and debris out of a blocked drain that’s flooded. This debris may include sand and gravel, which would otherwise be difficult to remove. Once clear, we’ll send in a camera to pinpoint the cause of the blockage. We can then choose the most suitable drain unblocking method for the situation, and we’ll be able to use water jetters without adding to the floodwater.

As part of our emergency drain unblocking service, we’ll check that your system is flowing again. We do this by inspecting the newly unblocked drain with a camera. While confirming that your blocked drain has been cleared, we’ll look for signs of what caused the blockage to begin with, such as faults or the build-up of scale.

Following this visual check, we can quote for recommended repairs to prevent a blockage from happening again for the same reason.