The older villas along Roehampton Lane and around the university drain through clay runs under mature gardens, with Richmond Park's trees doing what trees do. A survey shows whether a repeat blockage is roots, a dropped joint or a collapse, which are three different bills.
A CCTV drain survey is exactly what it sounds like: we put a camera down your drains and watch, in glorious detail, what four decades of plumbing decisions look like from the inside. To be clear, we would do this bit for free. It’s the best television in the trade. Narrating a drain run like a nature documentary (“here we see the fatberg in its natural habitat”) is a professional perk.
What you get is the useful part: a plain-English report of exactly what’s down there, where it is, and what (if anything) actually needs doing. No jargon without translation, no invented “urgent works”. If the drain is healthy, the report says so.
When a survey earns its money:
- Repeat blockages. If the same drain keeps blocking, something structural is causing it: roots, a dropped joint, scale, or a slumped section. The camera finds the cause, so you stop paying to treat the symptom.
- Buying a house in the TW area. Much of the local stock has original clay drains from the Victorian era or the 1930s. A £250 survey before exchange can save you a £3,000+ excavation after. Lenders and insurers increasingly ask for one.
- Landlords and letting agents. A dated survey report is clean evidence of drain condition between tenancies.
What it costs: a standard domestic survey runs £150–£350 depending on how much drain there is to inspect, and homebuyer surveys with a full written report start around £250. Fixed price, agreed before we start. If the survey finds something that needs fixing, the survey fee is credited against repair work we do, so you never pay twice to learn the same fact.
What to do right now in Roehampton
- A survey is a planned visit, not an emergency. If water is actually backing up right now, call us about the blockage first.
- Have a rough idea where your manholes or inspection covers are. If you don't know, that's fine, finding them is part of the job.
- Buying a house? Book the survey before exchange, not after. A collapsed drain is the buyer's problem the moment you own it.
CCTV Drain Survey help, local to Roehampton
Post-war estate drainage on one side of Roehampton Lane, interwar villas and university grounds on the other, and both kinds block in their own way.
Roehampton is the western end of SW15, where Putney Heath meets Richmond Park, and it is really two drainage systems. On one side of Roehampton Lane is the Alton Estate, one of the largest post-war estates in London, where blocks and maisonettes share stacks and underground runs and a blockage is a communal event. On the other are interwar villas, the university’s grounds and newer flats, draining through older clay under big gardens with the park’s trees alongside.
Estate calls are about finding the right pipe. A ground-floor flat backing up is usually a shared run or a stack serving several homes, and the fix is to clear it from the correct chamber and give the managing agent a straight account of what was in it, so the next flush is somebody else’s lesson. We do not plunge shared stacks. It sends the problem upstairs.
Villa calls are about roots and old joints. Richmond Park’s oaks and the mature gardens along the lane have been exploring the clay for a century, and the camera settles whether a repeat blockage is roots, a dropped joint or a collapse. We cover all of Roehampton from the Putney and Barnes side, around the clock.
We cover all of Roehampton (SW15) — from Roehampton University, the Alton Estate, Richmond Park (Roehampton Gate) and across Putney, Barnes, Richmond Park. Being genuinely local means we already know what Roehampton's drains are made of, and how fast we can be at your door.More about drains in Roehampton →