A 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.
14 years in Hampshire drainage · surveys available 24/7 · fully insured, City & Guilds qualified
A CCTV drain survey sends a purpose-built camera along the inside of a drainage run and records what it sees. It shows the condition of the pipe wall, the joints, the connections, the fall of the run and anything sitting in it: roots, silt, fat, a displaced section, a fracture, a collapse. It converts a below-ground system you cannot see into something you can watch on a screen and make a decision about.
So Drainage Solutions runs a camera on almost every job as standard, because that is how a cause gets found rather than guessed at. We also carry out surveys as a service in their own right: before you buy a property, when a drain keeps blocking for no obvious reason, when an insurer or a managing agent wants evidence, and after work has been done so you can see the finished condition of the run.
The value is not the footage on its own. It is the interpretation: which of the things on screen actually matter, which will cause a problem in two winters' time, and which are cosmetic and can be left. Fourteen years in the trade is what separates a survey that helps you decide from a video file you cannot read.
Almost every expensive drainage job started as a cheap one that nobody investigated. A drain that blocks twice a year is not unlucky; it has a reason, and the reason is usually a defect that is quietly getting worse each time debris catches on it. Every clearance without a diagnosis is money spent on the symptom while the cause continues.
The other cost is buying a problem. Drainage sits outside a standard homebuyer's survey. A collapsed run under a driveway, a shared lateral with root ingress or an unlawful connection made during a previous extension all become the new owner's problem the day the keys change hands, and excavating a driveway costs a great deal more than the survey that would have found it.
Three rodding visits in a year cost more than one survey and one targeted repair, and at the end of them the defect is still there and one winter worse.
Drainage defects are rarely picked up by a standard property survey. Found before exchange, they are a negotiating point. Found afterwards, they are yours.
A cracked or displaced run leaks into the surrounding ground, washing out the bedding under the pipe and, in the worst cases, undermining nearby structures. Nothing shows at the surface until something moves.
Insurers want the cause of a failure documented. Without survey footage and a clear location, a claim for drainage-related damage is far harder to make stick.
Paving, decking or extending over a run that is already failing means the next repair involves lifting whatever has just been built.
You tell us why you want the survey: pre-purchase, recurring blockage, insurance, or a condition record. What you need out of it shapes how the run is covered.
Chambers are located and lifted, the layout of the system worked out, and the direction of flow confirmed so nothing is surveyed twice and nothing is missed.
A run holding silt or standing water is vacuumed or jetted first. A camera cannot report on a pipe wall it cannot see, so cleaning comes before recording.
The camera is run through each length, recording pipe condition, joints, connections, fall, root ingress, deposits and any structural defect, with locations noted along the run.
You are walked through what is on screen in plain English: what matters, what does not, and what the realistic options are for anything that does.
Footage and findings for your records, for a solicitor, for an insurer or for a managing agent, with a straight recommendation on whether anything needs doing and how urgently.
You see the pipe. There is no debate about whether it is roots or a collapse, and no work priced against a hunch.
Knowing the defect is 6 metres along a particular run is the difference between a targeted patch repair and digging up a driveway to find it.
Evidence of a drainage defect before exchange is something you can act on. The same evidence a month later is a bill.
Recorded footage supports insurance claims, disputes about shared runs and conversations with managing agents.
One survey usually costs less than the repeat clearances it replaces, and far less than the excavation an ignored defect turns into.
The person interpreting the footage is the person who fixes drains for a living, not a technician reading from a checklist.
Surveys are commissioned for very different reasons, and each one calls for a slightly different approach.
The priority here is coverage and evidence: every accessible run from the property to the boundary, the connection arrangement, the material and age of the pipework, and any defect that a future owner would have to pay for. Older Hampshire housing stock frequently has vitrified clay runs with mortar joints, which are exactly the runs that suffer root ingress and joint displacement.
Where a drain blocks repeatedly, the survey looks for what is catching material: a step at a displaced joint, a sagging section holding water, root hairs, scale, or an unlawful connection discharging into an undersized run. The pattern of deposits along the pipe often points at the cause before the defect itself comes into view.
Insurers generally want the cause, the location and the extent documented. That means clean footage of the defect itself, its position along the run, and an accompanying explanation of how it caused the damage being claimed for.
After clearance, lining or excavation, a second pass shows the finished state of the run: pipe wall clean, joints sound, water flowing away with no ponding. This is what proves the work rather than describing it.
Common findings include root ingress at joints, fat and scale deposits, silt in the invert, cracked or fractured pipe, displaced or open joints, partial and full collapses, ingress of soil, ponding water from a lost fall, intrusive lateral connections and rodent damage in older clay systems.
Vitrified clay in short jointed lengths on most pre-1970s property, pitch fibre on some mid-century estates, prone to deforming into an oval, and PVCu or clay on modern builds. Material dictates likely failure mode and which repair options are realistic, so identifying it is part of the survey.
A domestic survey typically covers a handful of runs from a house to the boundary. Commercial and estate work covers longer bores, yard gullies, channel drainage, interceptors and multiple connected buildings, and is usually about planned maintenance and condition records as much as fault-finding.
Surveys are run from inspection chambers, rodding eyes and gullies. Where chambers have been paved or built over, entry has to be made from the next available access point. Keeping chambers accessible is the single cheapest thing a property owner can do for future drainage costs.
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.
It depends on how much of the system needs covering and whether the runs have to be cleaned before the camera can see anything. Tell us the property and why you want the survey and you will get a clear position before anything is booked in.
A typical domestic property is usually covered within a single visit. Longer commercial runs, or systems that need vacuuming and jetting before the camera goes down, take longer.
Yes. You get the recorded findings for your own records or to pass to a solicitor, insurer or managing agent, and you get the findings explained in plain terms rather than left to interpret alone.
It is worth it on any older property, anywhere with mature trees close to the run, and anywhere that has been extended. Drainage is not covered in detail by a standard property survey, and it is one of the few defects that is both expensive and completely invisible from the surface.
Yes, and often that is exactly the right time. The run may need vacuuming or jetting first so the camera has a clear view, which is part of the same visit rather than a separate job.
It shows where the defect sits relative to your boundary and how the run connects, which is what determines whether it is your pipework or a shared or public lateral. You are told honestly what we find rather than being sold work that belongs to the water authority.
You are shown it on screen and told what the realistic options are, clearance, patch repair, relining, or excavation, along with how urgent it is. All of that work is done in house, but nothing is booked in without you deciding.
Yes. The business operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which includes surveys where an urgent situation calls for one.
It depends on access, pipe bore and how many bends the run contains, but a standard domestic system from property to boundary is normally covered comfortably from the existing chambers.
14 years in the trade, City & Guilds qualified, WJA qualified for jetting work and fully insured. The person reading the footage is the person who carries out the repairs.
Book a survey and stop paying for the same blockage twice. Ring any hour, or send your postcode and what you need the survey for.
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 moreA new structural lining cured inside the existing pipe: cracks sealed, open joints closed and root entry stopped, with no excavation and nothing to reinstate afterwards.
Read moreThe defect is located on camera before a spade goes in the ground, so the hole is where the fault is, not three exploratory trenches across your garden looking for it.
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