Drainage, waste and pipework

Blockages, waste pipes, soil stacks and new runs. The unglamorous half of plumbing, and the half that floods a kitchen when it is ignored.

Covering Gravesend, Northfleet, Erith and Dartford and the rest of our eighteen districts.

Call any time, day or night

07546 185778

Call 07546 185778 Get a written quote Message us on WhatsApp

Clearing it, and then fixing why

Clearing a blockage is the easy part. The question worth asking is why that pipe blocked, because a waste run that backs up twice a year is usually telling you it has too little fall, too many bends, or a joint that has dropped.

The run in the photograph above is the answer to that question on one job: new pipework, fitted and valved, put in to unblock a waste pipe and left with access for the future. That is the difference between rodding something through and actually solving it. The isolation valve on it means the next person who has to work on that pipe can shut it down in seconds instead of draining half the system.

Soil stacks and the outside work

Soil stacks are the jobs people put off because they involve ladders and the side of the house. They also fail slowly and expensively, usually as a damp patch on an internal wall that nobody connects to the pipe outside until the plaster goes.

Replacing a stack on a two or three storey property is a proper day’s work: strapping and brackets set out, joints made up so the runs stay true, the branch connections sealed, and the whole thing tested rather than eyeballed.

What to do while you wait

If a sink or a bath is backing up, stop running water into it. Every extra litre goes somewhere and it is usually your floor. If it is an outside gully overflowing, lift the grid and clear the leaves and grease you can reach by hand, because sometimes that is genuinely all it is.

If waste is coming back up through a ground floor toilet or shower tray, that is a main run problem rather than a local one. Stop using the upstairs facilities and ring us, because the next flush has nowhere to go but your ground floor.

A new white waste pipework run with compression fittings and an isolation valve, clipped along a service cupboard wall — A new pipework run, fitted and valved.Put in to unblock a waste pipe, and left with access for the future.

A black soil pipe running down a pebbledashed exterior wall with a swept bend at the top and cast brackets fixed into the render — A soil pipe run on an exterior wall.Brackets, falls and swept bends, set out before anything is fixed.

Drainage: common questions

Is a blocked drain an emergency?

If waste is coming back into the property, yes. If one basin is slow, it is a job for the morning. Ring 07546 185778 and describe it, and we will tell you honestly which one it is.

Who is responsible, me or the water company?

Broadly, the pipework inside your boundary is yours and the shared sewer beyond it is not. Where the line falls depends on the property, and it is worth establishing before anyone starts digging.

Can you get to a soil stack on a three storey house?

Yes. Full height stack work on multi storey properties is part of the ordinary run of jobs, and the photographs on this site include one.

Drainage and pipework across the districts we cover

Eighteen postcode districts, each with a page of its own. Find yours and you will get the local detail as well as the service.

Also worth a look

All six services

Ring us about drainage and pipework.

Describe the job on the phone and you will get a straight answer about it, then a price in writing before anything starts.

Call any time, day or night

07546 185778

Call 07546 185778 Get a written quote Message us on WhatsApp