Sometimes a drain isn’t blocked, it’s broken. Clay pipes crack, joints get pushed apart by tree roots or traffic, and old mortar simply gives up after a century of service. The tell-tale signs: a drain that keeps re-blocking after every clear, a permanently damp patch of garden, an unexplained dip in the driveway, or new visitors of the whiskered variety.
The good news, and we mean properly good: most broken drains no longer need digging up. Relining inserts a resin-soaked liner into the existing pipe and cures it in place, leaving a smooth new structural pipe inside the old one. No trench through your garden, no jackhammer through the patio, done in a day for most domestic repairs. (We think watching a liner cure is fascinating. You don’t have to. That’s what we’re for.)
How we play it straight:
- Survey first, always. We never quote structural work from a hunch. The CCTV survey shows you the damage on screen, so you’re deciding from evidence, not from a salesman’s frown.
- Repair options in plain English. A localised patch repair (£300–£600) fixes a single cracked section. Full relining runs £400–£600 per metre. Excavation is the last resort, and if someone quotes you a dig without showing you camera footage, get a second opinion. Ideally ours.
- Insurance help. Accidental drain damage is covered by many buildings policies, and we provide the survey footage and written report your insurer needs. If the damage has caused a leak or water damage inside the house, that side is a plumber-and-insurance job, and our friends at Emergency Plumbers TW handle exactly that, 24/7.
A cracked drain left alone becomes a collapsed drain, and a collapsed drain becomes a hole in the ground with your name on the invoice. Catch it at the crack stage.
What to do right now in Shepperton
- Signs of a broken drain: one patch of lawn that's always soggy, a new sinkhole or dip in the drive, rats appearing, or a drain that re-blocks within weeks of being cleared.
- Don't panic about the word 'collapsed'. Most damage is a crack or a displaced joint, and most of it can be fixed without excavation.
- If a blocked or broken drain has already flooded part of your home, photograph everything before cleaning up. Your insurer will want the evidence.
Drain Repair & Relining help, local to Shepperton
Riverside village where old village drains meet a floodplain water table.
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 →