There’s a kind of silence in most common drain issues. Pipes don’t scream. They gurgle. They hesitate. They slow. Something’s wrong, but it doesn’t shout. It waits.
And above ground, you notice the signs. Water rising in the sink. A toilet reluctant to flush. An outside gully, slow to empty after rain. You try the usual things—chemicals, plungers, guesswork. For a time, they seem to work.
But the same problem returns.
That’s when people call for a CCTV drain survey. Not out of curiosity. But because they want to stop guessing.
Seeing Without Digging
A CCTV drain survey doesn’t disturb your home. No need to rip up floors or dig through flowerbeds. Instead, a small camera is fed into the system. It moves through the pipes quietly, recording everything.
Roots growing where they shouldn’t. Joints that no longer line up. Silt building in the bends. Collapsed sections hiding under tarmac or tiles.
What once felt like mystery becomes visible. A recording shows what’s there—and what isn’t.
And that knowledge is where the real repair begins.
When You Might Need One
You don’t need to wait for disaster.
Persistent blockages are often the first sign. If you’ve cleared the same drain more than once in a short space of time, there may be something deeper at work. Grease and fat in the kitchen. Hair and soap in the bathroom. Or a cracked pipe that’s letting soil in.
Buying a house is another moment worth pausing for. A property may look perfect from the outside—but drains are rarely part of a standard survey. A CCTV check lets you know what you’re inheriting, before it becomes yours.
Unexplained smells can also signal problems. Trapped air, standing waste, rotting debris. When you’ve cleaned and scrubbed and it still lingers, the cause may be deeper than the sink.
Flooding or damp patches in the garden—especially after light rain—can point to broken pipes underground. A quick look with a camera can confirm it.
There’s also the matter of renovation. If you’re planning get the builders in to renovate, building control often requires a survey before approving the work. Not out of red tape—but because you shouldn’t build over a problem you can’t see.
What It Reveals
People imagine blockages like plugs—solid, round, easy to remove. But more often they’re soft, shifting things. Grease hardened over time. Debris clinging to misaligned joints. Roots winding in through small cracks.
Some surveys reveal collapsed sections—especially in older properties with clay or pitch fibre pipes. Others find nothing wrong, which is useful in itself. It rules out drains as the cause of the problem.
Sometimes, it shows what was left behind by builders. Bits of brick. Cement. Tools. Not out of malice. Just habit.
What Happens Next
The footage is reviewed and recorded. You’re given a report. Not pages of guesswork—but images. Measurements. A clear plan of where the issue is, and how deep.
From there, a decision. Jetting, relining, digging. But whatever happens next, it starts with clarity. Because guessing costs more over time than finding out early.
The Difference Is in What You Don’t See
Drains are quiet until they aren’t. And when they fail, they do so out of sight—until the water backs up, or the smell rises, or the grass won’t dry.
You can respond in two ways. With trial and error. Or with a camera.
One chases the problem. The other finds it.