Internal blockages dealt with without a bathroom full of foul water: the cause traced from the fixture back to the run, cleared, and the waste vacuumed away with us.
14 years in the trade · answered 24 hours a day · fully insured, City & Guilds qualified
A blocked toilet, sink, bath or shower is where most drainage problems are first noticed, but it is rarely where the problem sits. Internal waste pipes are small bore, 32mm to 50mm on a sink, 110mm on a toilet, and they feed into a soil stack or a branch run that carries everything to the drain outside. A blockage can be in the trap under the fixture, in the branch behind the wall, in the stack, or in the below-ground run beyond the building.
We work the problem from the fixture backwards. Which fixtures are affected tells us how far down the system the obstruction is: one slow sink is local, a toilet and a shower backing up together is a shared branch, and everything on the ground floor rising at once is a below-ground run. That saves lifting floorboards for something sitting in a chamber outside.
Clearance is then matched to the pipe. Small-bore waste runs take mechanical clearance and flushing. Soil stacks and 110mm branches take rodding or controlled jetting. Below-ground runs get the CCTV camera and the full drainage treatment. Sheeting goes down, waste is vacuumed rather than mopped, and the bathroom or kitchen is left usable.
Unlike an outside drain, an internal blockage overflows into your home. Once a soil branch is full, the next flush has nowhere to go except back through the lowest opening, usually a downstairs toilet, a shower tray or a washing machine standpipe. Foul water on a bathroom floor gets under vinyl, into skirting and through into the ceiling below within minutes.
There is also a diagnostic cost to waiting. Repeatedly plunging or pouring chemicals down a fixture pushes the obstruction further along, out of the small-bore pipe where it could have been reached easily and into the stack or the below-ground run, where clearing it is a bigger job.
Foul water spreads under floor coverings and into joists. The drainage clearance is the cheap part; drying, replacing flooring and dealing with a stained ceiling below is not.
Sewage in a living space is a health issue, particularly in a home with children, or in any premises preparing food. The smell persists in soft flooring long after the water is gone.
A blockage in a shared branch or stack takes out every fixture that feeds it. In a flat or an HMO that means several bathrooms and several tenants, all at once.
Forcing a blockage along with a plunger or chemicals often relocates it into the stack or the underground run, turning a fifteen-minute clearance into a full drainage visit.
We ask which fixtures are affected and in what order they misbehave. That narrows the location before anyone arrives, day or night.
Sheeting down, the affected fixtures checked, and the outside chambers lifted to establish whether the fault is internal or below ground.
Trap, branch, stack or underground run; the obstruction is located, and where it sits below ground the CCTV camera goes down before anything else happens.
Mechanical clearance and flushing on small-bore waste, rodding or controlled jetting on soil branches and stacks, full drainage clearance on the run outside.
Every affected fixture is filled and run in sequence, so a slow branch cannot hide behind a fixture that happens to empty first.
Waste vacuumed and taken away, surfaces wiped down, and a plain explanation of what caused it and what to keep out of the pipe.
Most internal blockages are cleared on the first visit, so the bathroom or kitchen is usable again before we leave.
Sheeting down, wet vacuum on hand, waste removed with us. No mop-and-bucket clean-up left for you.
Small-bore waste is not jetted like a 110mm run. Matching method to pipe is what prevents cracked traps and blown joints.
If the fault turns out to be in the drain outside, it gets dealt with there and then, not passed to another firm.
Nights, weekends and bank holidays on the same number. A blocked only-toilet in a house is not a Monday morning problem.
You find out whether it was wipes, fat, a poorly falling branch or something structural, so the next one is avoidable.
Internal pipework varies enormously between a 1930s Romsey terrace and a new build in Whiteley. These are the situations that come up most often.
A WC has a built-in trap and a 110mm outlet into a branch or stack. Blockages are usually wipes, sanitary items, excessive paper or an object dropped in the pan. If the pan empties slowly but the outside chamber is clear, the obstruction is in the pan trap or the short branch behind it. If the chamber is surcharged, the toilet is only telling you about a below-ground problem.
Kitchen waste is 40mm or 50mm and carries the greasiest water in the building. Fat cools on the pipe wall, catches food debris and coffee grounds, and closes the bore. Clearing it mechanically restores flow; flushing the run properly afterwards is what stops it re-forming within weeks.
Shower and bath wastes block with hair bound into soap residue, almost always within a metre of the trap. Quick to clear, but a shower tray that empties slowly with a clear trap points at a shallow fall on the branch: a pipework issue, not a blockage.
In flats, HMOs and any building with stacked bathrooms, several fixtures share one vertical stack. A blockage low in the stack affects everything above it, and it presents as multiple flats reporting problems on the same morning. These are cleared from the nearest access point, with the units below protected first.
Appliance waste is hot, detergent-heavy and pumped under pressure. A partially blocked standpipe overflows dramatically during a discharge cycle even though the sink beside it looks fine. Detergent scale and lint are the usual cause.
Basement WCs and en-suites added to older properties often discharge through a macerator into small-bore pipework. These are far less tolerant of wipes and cleaning products than a gravity run, and a blocked discharge line will present exactly like a blocked toilet.
Gurgling as another fixture drains is a venting symptom, not always a blockage. A partially obstructed stack vent or a failed air admittance valve pulls water out of traps, which is also the most common cause of drain smells in a bathroom with no visible fault.
Commercial washrooms block for different reasons: paper towels, sanitary waste, high-volume use and, in food premises, kitchen grease reaching the same run. Commercial work is planned around trading where the situation allows, and larger runs are jetted rather than rodded.
Based on Cutforth Way in Romsey, covering Southampton, Romsey and the surrounding towns and villages. If your postcode is not listed, ring and ask; it is usually still within reach.
In most cases yes. The phone is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and internal blockages are usually cleared in a single visit. Ring with your postcode and we will tell you when we can be there.
It depends on where the blockage sits; a trap under a sink and a surcharged run outside are very different jobs. You are told what is involved and what it will take before work begins, so nothing starts on a guess.
A trap or short branch blockage is typically a short visit. A soil stack or a below-ground run takes longer, particularly if the run has to be vacuumed out before it can be cleared properly.
Sheeting goes down before anything is opened, waste is wet vacuumed rather than mopped, and everything we remove leaves with us. Surfaces are wiped down before we go.
That is the first thing we establish. The chambers outside are lifted and checked: if they are running clear the fault is internal, and if they are surcharged the fixture is only reporting a below-ground blockage. Either way it is dealt with on the same visit.
That pattern almost always means the obstruction has not been removed, only shifted, or that there is a defect further along the run catching everything that passes. A CCTV survey of the run answers it definitively rather than repeating the clearance every few weeks.
Yes. Where several fixtures or several flats are affected at once the stack is usually the cause, and it is cleared from the nearest access point with the units below protected first.
Yes: nights, weekends and bank holidays, on the same number. A household with one toilet does not wait until Monday.
The business is fully insured, City & Guilds qualified, WJA qualified for jetting work, with 14 years in the trade.
Wipes of any description, including those sold as flushable, sanitary items, cotton pads, cooking fat and oil, and coffee grounds. Those five account for the large majority of internal blockages we attend across Southampton and Romsey.
Ring for anything urgent, answered any hour, any day. Or send your postcode and what is happening and we will come back to you.
Call 07940 156407One visit that clears the blockage, shows you what caused it on screen, and leaves the run flowing before we pack up, so you are not paying for the same drain twice.
Read moreNights, weekends and bank holidays on the same number, answered by the person who turns up: drain cleared, water vacuumed away and the cause explained before we leave.
Read moreA camera down the run turns a guess into a fact: you find out exactly what is wrong, where it is, how deep it sits, and what it genuinely takes to put right.
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