Drain trouble in Hampton? We answer 24/7.

Yes, all of TW12, 24 hours a day, from Hampton village and the waterworks riverfront up to Hampton Hill and across to the Hampton Wick borders.

Some of the oldest we ever put a camera into. The great Victorian waterworks along the riverfront supplied London its drinking water, and the streets of cottages built around them in the 1850s to 1890s got Victorian drains to match. Hand-laid brick inspection chambers turn up under Hampton gardens like little cathedrals. We photograph them. It is normal.

Three things, mostly: lime-mortar joints that roots walk straight through, gentle sags where 150 years of ground settlement has let a pipe dip and collect grease, and the occasional surprise where a long-gone builder connected something creatively. Age is not a crisis, but it does mean guessing is a bad strategy and a camera is a good one.

The Bushy Park side contributes magnificent trees and equally magnificent root systems, and roots go wherever there is water and a joint to get through. On Hampton's older lime-mortar joints that is not difficult for them. Sealing the entry point is what stops it, rather than removing the tree.

Between the cottages, the between-wars semis towards Hampton Hill add the usual extension-overload problem: modern kitchens working drains that were sized for a scullery. The pipe is rarely broken, it is simply carrying several times what it was laid for. A survey shows whether it is coping or narrowing.