Independent Bristol drainage engineers · Checkatrade approved
Independent Bristol drainage engineers · Checkatrade approved
We can usually be with you today. We agree a fixed price on arrival before any work starts, and there’s no call-out fee — so if you’d rather not go ahead once you’ve heard the price, there’s nothing to pay and we leave.
Tell us your postcode and what the drain is doing. That’s usually all we need.
Standard clearance
£120 no VAT to pay
Call-out fee
£0
Typical arrival
2 to 4 hours
Evenings & weekends
Same price
If the fault returns
12-month call-back
We won’t quote firmly over the phone for a job we haven’t seen — but we’ll tell you what’s likely.
Most Bristol call-outs attended today
Certificate available on request
We prove it's clear before we leave
Bristol-based, not a national chain
The usual suspects
Five things cause almost every blockage we attend in Bristol. Which one you’re dealing with changes what it takes to fix — and whether it comes back.
Poured down warm, it cools and hardens on the pipe wall, building in layers until the bore narrows enough to catch everything else. The commonest cause in kitchens — and by far the commonest in cafés and restaurants.
So-called flushable wipes don't break down like paper. They catch on a rough joint or a root and then collect everything that passes. The commonest cause of a blocked toilet.
Roots find pipe joints looking for moisture, then grow. Bristol's Victorian stock — Redland, Cotham, Bishopston, Clifton — is jointed clay, and mature street trees make this common. Cutting back buys time; a displaced joint needs repairing.
Gradual build-up, especially in older cast-iron and clay runs and in gullies that collect leaves and grit. High-pressure jetting restores the full bore rather than punching a channel through it.
A cracked, displaced or collapsed section, or a length laid at the wrong gradient. Nothing clears permanently until it's repaired — which is exactly what a CCTV survey is for.
That's normal, and working it out is our job. Describe what you're seeing on the phone and we'll tell you what it's likely to be before we set off. Call 0117 427 4565.
From the camera
Stills from CCTV surveys on Bristol properties. If your drain keeps blocking, this is the kind of thing we find — and why another clearance wouldn’t have fixed it.
Tree roots
Through a clay joint.
Fat and grease
Narrowed bore, commercial kitchen
Structural fault
Displaced joint, needs repair
Every survey we run produces footage you keep. More about CCTV drain surveys.
Work it out yourself
1
The blockage is between the house and that chamber — internal pipework or the soil pipe.
2
The blockage is downstream of it, somewhere in the underground run — and everything indoors is backing up behind it.
If you’d rather not lift covers, the pattern of symptoms tells us most of what we need over the phone. One slow fixture is usually internal. Several fixtures, or an overflowing outside drain, is nearly always the main run.
Before you pay anyone
It depends on what the pipe serves, not where the problem shows up.
If the drain serves only your property and the blockage is within your boundary, it’s usually yours. If several homes feed into the same run, or your neighbours have problems at the same time, it’s likely a shared lateral drain — and in this area that’s normally Wessex Water’s responsibility rather than yours.
The quick rule: if more than one property is affected at once, it is rarely a private drain.
We’ll tell you which it is before charging you for anything, including if you should be calling Wessex Water instead of us. Road gullies and highway flooding are different again — those are reported to Bristol City Council.
What’s affected
Usually whose responsibility
Pipes inside your home
You — the property owner
Drain serving only your property, within your boundary
You — the property owner
Shared drain serving two or more properties
Wessex Water (lateral drain)
Public sewer in the road
Wessex Water
Road gully or highway flooding
Bristol City Council
General guidance for the Bristol area. Check with Wessex Water or Bristol City Council for your specific situation — or call us and we’ll tell you what we think you’re dealing with.
On the day
The same four stages every time, in this order. If we can’t complete stage four, the job isn’t finished.
1
We find where the restriction actually is before anything gets pushed further down the pipe.
2
One fixed figure, said out loud before we start. If you’d rather not go ahead, there’s nothing to pay.
3
Mechanical clearance first — rods or an electro-mechanical machine — then jetting where the blockage needs it.
4
Flow tested while we’re still there. If there’s any doubt about why it happened, we put a camera down it and show you.
1
Tell us your postcode and what’s happening. We’ll say honestly whether it sounds like today or later in the week.
2
On site we work out where the blockage actually is, before anything gets pushed further down the pipe.
3
One fixed figure, told to you before we start. If you’d rather not go ahead, there’s nothing to pay.
4
Cleared and flow tested while we’re still there, then we explain what caused it and how to stop it happening again.
On arrival — chamber standing full
Before we left — cleared and flow tested
Reviews left on Google by people whose drains we’ve actually cleared.
No surprises
Most complaints about drainage companies come down to the same thing: nobody said what it would cost until the work was already done. We do it the other way round.
FROM
We won’t quote a firm figure over the phone for a job we haven’t seen — but we’ll tell you what’s likely and what would push it higher.
Right now
Four things that make a real difference between us taking the call and us arriving.
Taps, toilets, the dishwasher and the washing machine. Anything you send down has nowhere to go and adds to what comes back up.
If the bowl is already high, a second flush is what turns a blockage into a bathroom floor you have to clean.
They rarely clear a real blockage, can damage older pipework, and make the job more hazardous for whoever opens it up. If you already have, please tell us.
If there’s dirty water on the floor or standing outside, keep children and pets clear until it’s cleared and the area disinfected.
Coverage
Each area page covers what we actually find in that part of the city — the property stock, the pipework and the problems that come with them. Drains don’t follow postcode boundaries and neither do we, so if you’re just outside this list, call anyway.
Our own jetting and CCTV equipment — nothing subcontracted.
Straight answers
A standard domestic clearance works to a fixed price agreed on site, typically from £120. There’s no call-out fee and no extra charge for evenings, weekends or bank holidays.
We won’t quote a firm figure over the phone for a job we haven’t seen — but we’ll tell you what’s likely and what would push it higher.
Usually, yes. Same-day attendance is most of what we do across Bristol and Bath. You’ll be given a realistic arrival window when you call — [2 to 4 hours] in most cases — and if we’re running behind you’ll hear from us.
It depends on what the pipe serves. If it serves only your property and the blockage is within your boundary, it’s usually yours. If several homes share the run, or neighbours are affected at the same time, it’s likely a shared lateral drain and normally Wessex Water’s responsibility.
If more than one property is affected at once, it is rarely a private drain. Road gullies and highway flooding are reported to Bristol City Council.
No. We come and look at no charge, and if you decide not to go ahead once you’ve heard the price, there’s nothing to pay and we leave.
Because the previous blockage was moved rather than removed, or because something is still in the pipe catching debris — a fat line, tree roots through a joint, a cracked or collapsed section, or a pipe laid at the wrong gradient.
If it’s happened more than twice in the same place, another clearance only treats the symptom. A CCTV survey finds the actual cause.
Rarely, on a genuine blockage. They may shift a light build-up near a plughole but won’t clear wipes, roots, silt or a broken pipe, and they can damage older pipework.
If you’ve already used one, please tell us when we arrive — it changes how we approach the job safely.
Yes. Blocked inspection chambers, gullies and outside drains are everyday work for us, domestic and commercial.
A gully holding water after rain is usually silt and leaf debris and clears easily. A chamber standing full is different — that means the blockage is downstream, and everything in the property is backing up behind it.
Yes — pubs, cafés, restaurants, shops, offices, HMOs and managed flats. Kitchen grease lines and shared runs in converted buildings are two of the most common problems we’re called to in Bristol.
For premises that can’t afford to close, planned maintenance works out considerably cheaper than emergency call-outs.
Next steps
When a blockage keeps returning, a camera shows what's actually down there. You keep the footage and a plain-English report.
High-pressure water cuts through fat, silt and scale to restore the full bore of the pipe, not just a channel through the middle of the blockage.
Cracked, displaced or root-damaged pipes repaired from the inside wherever possible, so the garden stays where it is.
We’ll tell you what you’re likely dealing with and when we can be there. No call-out fee, and a fixed price agreed before any work starts.
