What do I end up with?

A survey records the run as it is found. What that recording is worth to you depends on why you wanted it, so it is worth saying up front what you are after: a survey for your own peace of mind and one for an insurer or a solicitor are not always the same job.

Do I need one before buying a house?

A standard homebuyer survey does not include the drains. If the property has mature trees near the run, an extension built over it, or is more than about sixty years old, a drain survey is one of the cheaper pieces of due diligence you can do.

What is a dye test, and when can you do one?

We put a coloured tracer dye in at one end of a run and watch where it comes out. It proves which manhole connects to which and settles arguments about whose drain it is. It only works on a drain that is flowing, so a blocked drain has to be cleared first. We cannot dye test a blockage.

CCTV drain surveys

A camera survey answers three questions: what the pipe is made of, what condition it is in, and where it runs.

It is not something we can do on a blocked drain. A camera in standing effluent shows a brown screen and nothing else, so a survey comes after the drain is running, and it is normally a separate visit at additional cost.

0113 418 281924 hours, 7 days a week · no call-out fee

Green tracer dye running through the channel of a brick manhole — Plate 01Tracer dye arriving in the manhole downstream. That confirms where the run goes, and whose responsibility it is.

Signs you are looking at this

A drain that keeps blocking in the same place
Buying a house, particularly one with mature trees or an extension over the run
Subsidence, or a dip appearing in a drive or lawn
An insurer or a solicitor asking for a report
Nobody knows where the drain actually goes, which is more common than you would think

How we deal with it

01Access from a chamber. The crawler goes in from an existing chamber. No digging and nothing taken apart.
02Record the run. The camera records the full length with distances, so any defect can be located from the surface later.
03Trace the run if needed. Where the question is which run belongs to whom, tracer dye answers it. It needs the drain flowing, so it follows clearance rather than replacing it.
04Report. Written up plainly, with the footage, and a recommendation that may well be to do nothing.

Footage

This is what we actually see.

Survey 01Survey footage from a job in Harrogate. Forty seconds of a real run, ending at a cracked and displaced joint at about seventeen metres. The counter is the distance from the chamber, which is how the defect gets located again from the surface.

What it costs

The same hourly rate as everything else, from arrival. A survey is normally a separate visit from any clearance work, so it is charged as its own job rather than folded into the one before it.

How our pricing works →

When you do not need it

If a drain has blocked once, cleared properly and run well since, a survey is often just an expense. The time it earns its money is when the same drain keeps blocking, or when you are about to buy the house.

Common questions

What do I end up with?: A survey records the run as it is found. What that recording is worth to you depends on why you wanted it, so it is worth saying up front what you are after: a survey for your own peace of mind and one for an insurer or a solicitor are not always the same job.
Do I need one before buying a house?: A standard homebuyer survey does not include the drains. If the property has mature trees near the run, an extension built over it, or is more than about sixty years old, a drain survey is one of the cheaper pieces of due diligence you can do.
What is a dye test, and when can you do one?: We put a coloured tracer dye in at one end of a run and watch where it comes out. It proves which manhole connects to which and settles arguments about whose drain it is. It only works on a drain that is flowing, so a blocked drain has to be cleared first. We cannot dye test a blockage.

24 hours, 7 days a week

Want to know what is actually down there?

We can usually tell you what is likely wrong before we set off, and roughly what it will take to put right.

0113 418 2819

No call-out charge. We only charge from arrival.