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 Shepperton
- 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 Shepperton
Riverside village where old village drains meet a floodplain water table.
Shepperton is the prettiest place we work and, drainage-wise, one of the most interesting (we know how that sounds; we’re at peace with it). The village core around Church Square and the lock is genuinely old, and some of its drainage is too: narrow runs, quirky private connections, and pipes that predate any map Thames Water holds. Finding out where a Church Road drain actually goes is half detective work, which is why the survey camera earns its keep here more than anywhere.
The other half of the story is the river. Much of TW17 towards the lock and the Thames Path is floodplain, with a water table to match. Older joints let groundwater seep in, so runs sit part-full, and a modest blockage backs up faster than the same blockage would on higher ground in, say, Hounslow. When the Thames runs high, the margin shrinks further. Village memory of 2014 does the explaining for us.
So our honest local advice: Shepperton drains reward acting early. A slow gully in October is worth a phone call, not a winter of hoping. And if river water has actually entered your home, that side (pumping out, drying, insurance evidence) is handled brilliantly by Emergency Plumbers TW, while we sort the drains. One of us is excited about the fatberg; it’s not them.
We cover all of Shepperton (TW17) — from Shepperton Lock, Church Square, Shepperton Studios and across Sunbury, Walton-on-Thames, Laleham. Being genuinely local means we already know what Shepperton's drains are made of, and how fast we can be at your door.More about drains in Shepperton →