Blocked drains in Bournemouth, fixed at a price you agree first
A drainage company for Bournemouth homes, flats and lets, with engineers nearby, a price before we start and footage when we finish.
Blocked drains in Bournemouth: who comes out and how fast
A named engineer with a photo, only once they have agreed to appear. Town: Bournemouth.
Our engineers are based in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, so a Bournemouth call is a short drive rather than a trip across the county. We reach most addresses in the town usually within 60 minutes. The phone is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including bank holidays.
My Local Drainage is part of the OneFlow Drainage group, and the work is carried out by engineers from OneFlow Drainage.
- Who turns up: engineers from OneFlow Drainage.
- Whose reviews you see: Google reviews of OneFlow Drainage, labelled as theirs.
- Who you pay and who guarantees the work: MyLocal Drainage Services Ltd.
What Bournemouth's houses do to their drains
Lewis Tregonwell, regarded as Bournemouth's founder, arrived in 1810 when this was open heath. Each wave of building since has left its own kind of pipe.
Victorian and Edwardian streets: Boscombe, Winton, Charminster and Southbourne
Boscombe grew fast from 1865, Southbourne and Charminster from around 1880, and Winton's population rose from about 4,000 in 1891 to 6,719 in 1901.
Drains from this era are usually salt-glazed clay in short lengths with rigid joints. A century on, the joints fail first: a pipe drops a few millimetres, a crack lets a root in, or old mortar catches paper. Terraces were often drained through one pipe shared by the row, so a blockage three doors down can back up into your yard.
Big houses split into flats
Many of Boscombe's large Victorian and Edwardian houses became flats and shared houses from the 1970s. In the 2021 Census, 90% of households in the Boscombe West ward lived in a flat, and 26% lived in part of a converted house, against 3.5% across England.
Conversions often put several kitchens and bathrooms onto pipework laid for one family. When the shared drain blocks, it's normally the freeholder's or managing agent's job.
Between the wars and after: Moordown, Kinson and West Howe
Moordown filled in mainly between the wars, starting with the Mayfield Park estate from about 1911. Kinson joined Bournemouth in 1931, and the council began its West Howe estates in the late 1940s.
Homes built from the 1950s to about 1970 are the likeliest to have pitch fibre drains, made from wood pulp soaked in tar, which sag or blister with age. A camera shows in minutes whether you have it.
Littledown was farmland until the early 1980s and was mostly built that decade. Expect plastic drains there: they don't crack like clay, but joints can pull apart if the ground settles.
Pines, sand and the Stour
Bournemouth has been planting pines since the early 1800s: Talbot Woods began as the Malmesbury Plantation after the 1802 Enclosure Act. Roots find any open joint and can fill a drain. If a tree has a Tree Preservation Order, work on the tree needs BCP Council's consent, but relining the pipe from inside leaves the tree alone.
Much of the town sits on sand with clay bands, so a soakaway that works on one road can sit full on the next. Homes near the Stour at Throop, Muscliff and Iford are in the Environment Agency's Lower Stour flood warning area, and after Storm Chandra in January 2026 it issued a severe flood warning for Iford Bridge Home Park. When the river is high, drains can run slowly with nothing blocked.
Recent drainage jobs in Bournemouth
Real, dated jobs from Bournemouth addresses, with camera stills.
Real, dated jobs from the job log appear here: town and postcode district, the problem, what was done, and a photo. Nothing shows until real jobs are logged. Town: Bournemouth.
Emergency drain unblocking and CCTV surveys in Bournemouth
- Drain unblocking: from £80 for one standard blockage. If we can't clear it, you don't pay.
- Emergency drain unblocking: sewage in the yard or a toilet that won't go down, at any hour.
- CCTV drain survey: finds cracked clay, pitch fibre, roots and pipes shared with next door. Report within 48 hours.
- Drain relining: a new pipe formed inside the old one, with no digging. 10-year guarantee on relining and repairs.
Wessex Water, Bournemouth Water or you: who fixes what
Bournemouth Water, a trading name of South West Water, supplies your drinking water. Wessex Water owns the public sewers, and much of the town's wastewater goes to its Holdenhurst works, which serves about 180,000 people and gained a nine million litre storm tank in 2025.
Since 1 October 2011, drains shared with neighbours, and your own drain beyond your boundary, have belonged to Wessex Water. So:
- Only your home affected, blockage inside your boundary: your job to fix, and the work we do.
- Neighbours affected too, or a shared pipe or the sewer is blocked: Wessex Water clears it free. Call them on 0345 600 4 600, 24 hours a day.
- Water pooling at the kerb from a blocked road gully: BCP Council, which has more than 58,000 gullies across the three towns and cleans them on a two to four year cycle. Report it online or on 01202 123 123.
If the camera shows the fault is in Wessex Water's pipe, we show you and point you to them. More in our Wessex Water blocked drain guide.
Drainage company prices in Bournemouth
- Blocked toilet, sink or outside drainfrom£80
- CCTV drain surveyfrom£150
- Homebuyer drain survey with reportfrom£195
Bournemouth jobs use the same published price list as everywhere else. All prices include VAT. The same price day, night, weekends and bank holidays. No call-out fee. If a hard-to-reach chamber in a conversion changes the price, you hear it before we start.
Bournemouth neighbourhoods and postcodes we cover
A shaded map of the area we cover. No pins, because there is no office in each town. Town: Bournemouth.
- BH1 and BH2: the town centre, East Cliff, West Cliff and Springbourne
- BH3 and BH4: Talbot Woods, south Winton, Westbourne and Branksome Woods
- BH5 and BH6: Boscombe, Pokesdown, Southbourne, Tuckton and Wick
- BH7 and BH8: Littledown, Iford, Charminster, Queen's Park, Strouden Park, Throop and Holdenhurst
- BH9, BH10 and BH11: Winton, Moordown, Muscliff, Ensbury Park, Redhill, Northbourne, Kinson, West Howe, Bear Cross and Wallisdown
We also cover Poole, Christchurch, the rest of Dorset and west Hampshire.
What Bournemouth customers say
Reviews belong to the group: 4.9 stars from 325+ Google reviews of OneFlow Drainage. These cards are from Bournemouth customers.
Pulled from OneFlow Drainage's Google profile at build time, each card labelled as a OneFlow Drainage review with a link to the original. Town: Bournemouth.
Bournemouth drainage FAQs
My water bill says Bournemouth Water. Are they responsible for my blocked drain?
No. Bournemouth Water only supplies clean water. The public sewers in Bournemouth belong to Wessex Water, which clears blockages in shared drains and sewers at no charge. A pipe that serves only your home, inside your boundary, is your responsibility, and that's the part we unblock.
Who clears a blocked drain in the road in Bournemouth?
BCP Council, if it's a road gully: the grated drain at the edge of the road. Report it on the council's website or call 01202 123 123. If sewage is coming out of a manhole in the road, that's the public sewer, so call Wessex Water on 0345 600 4 600, day or night.
I rent a flat in a converted house in Boscombe. Who pays for a blocked drain?
Inside your flat, your landlord is normally responsible, unless the blockage came from something put down the pipe. The shared stack and the drain serving the whole building are normally the freeholder's or managing agent's job. Tell us who manages the building when you call and we'll agree the price with the person paying.
Do pine tree roots really get into drains?
Yes. Pines and other trees push fine roots into cracked or loose joints looking for water, and the roots thicken once they're inside. We cut them out, then run a camera to see how badly the joint is damaged. If the pipe is cracked, relining seals it from the inside without touching the tree.
Do I need a CCTV drain survey when buying a house in Bournemouth?
It isn't compulsory, and a standard building survey doesn't look inside the drains. It's worth doing on a Victorian or Edwardian house, a flat conversion or a home built in the pitch fibre years. A homebuyer survey costs from £195, and the footage and written report reach you within 48 hours.
Blocked drain in Bournemouth right now?
Call 0800 246 5347 or leave your number below for a callback. You'll have a price and an arrival time before anyone lifts a cover.