Drain Relining: Repair a Cracked Pipe Without Digging Up the Garden
Drain relining seals cracks, leaking joints and root damage from inside the pipe, so your patio, drive and lawn stay put.
- Patch repairs from £250
- Full relining £80 to £150 per metre
- No call-out fee
- 10-year guarantee on relining and repairs
- Most jobs take one day or less
Signs your drain could be relined
Relining is a no dig drain repair for a pipe that is damaged but still holds its shape. Most people hear the word after a camera survey, but these are the problems that usually lead there.
- Roots keep coming back. Roots push in through cracked or open joints. Cutting them out clears the pipe for a while, but they regrow until the joint is sealed.
- A blockage that returns to the same spot. Waste catches on a crack or a slightly dropped joint and builds up again.
- A leak you can't see. Damp near the house, a sewage smell in the garden, or a strip of greener grass along the drain line.
- A survey report listing cracks or open joints. This is common on older clay drains, where every joint is a possible weak point.
- Rats. A gap in a pipe is enough for a rat to squeeze through.
Drain lining explained: how CIPP works
Most drain lining uses a method called CIPP, short for cured-in-place pipe. Put simply, we build a new pipe inside the old one.
- A tube of felt or glass fibre is soaked in resin.
- It goes into the drain from a manhole or access point and is pressed tight against the old pipe wall by air or water pressure.
- The resin hardens, either on its own or faster with heat or ultraviolet light, depending on the system.
- What's left is a smooth, jointless pipe inside the old one, with nothing for roots to find.
The old pipe stays in the ground and acts as the mould. Because nothing is dug up, relining usually costs less than excavation where the drain runs under patios, drives, extensions or conservatories.
The liner is a few millimetres thick, so the pipe loses a little of its bore. On a normal house drain that makes no practical difference.
Patch lining or a full liner?
| Patch lining | Full relining | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A short resin sleeve over one fault | A liner along the whole run, from one access point to the next |
| Best for | One crack, one leaking joint, one root entry point | Several faults, roots at many joints, a worn or porous pipe |
| Side connections | Usually untouched | Reopened from inside with a remote cutter |
| Price | from £250 per patch | £80 to £150 per metre |
Once a run needs several patches close together, a full liner can work out at a similar price and leaves no joints at all. When that happens we'll show you both figures side by side.
How long a liner lasts
Liner makers design and test their systems for a service life of around 50 years. That is a design figure, not a promise, and it assumes the pipe was cleaned properly and the resin cured fully. Our own promise is in writing: 10-year guarantee on relining and repairs.
How we reline your drain
- Survey and measure
We film the drain, find each fault by its distance from the access point, and measure the pipe size and the length that needs lining. You watch the footage as we go.
- Clean it back to the pipe wall
A liner only bonds to a clean pipe, so we jet off scale and grease and cut out roots first. Poor cleaning is one of the commonest reasons linings fail early.
- Fit the patch or liner
A patch goes in on an inflatable packer and is held in place until the resin sets. A full liner is fed through the whole run.
- Reopen side connections
Where a branch joins the run, a remote cutter opens the liner from inside so the branch flows again.
- Film it again
The camera goes back through, and you get the before and after footage with a short report.
Not sure yet what's wrong with your pipe? Start with a CCTV drain survey, and read what a survey should cost in our CCTV drain survey cost guide.
Drain relining cost
- CCTV survey and reportfrom£150
- Patch repair, first patchfrom£250
- Full relining, per metre£80 to £150 per metre
What's included: preparing the pipe, the patch or liner, reopening any side connections, and the after survey with footage.
What changes the price: pipe size (a 150mm pipe costs more to line than a 100mm one), the length of the run, the number of bends and branches, how heavy the roots or scale are, and whether we can work from an outside manhole or need to go in from inside the house.
All prices include VAT. The same price day, night, weekends and bank holidays. Our full price list is on the prices page.
What relining can and can't fix
Relining works well on:
- cracks and fractures where the pipe is still round
- open or leaking joints, and joints that have slipped a little
- root entry points, once the roots have been cut out
- pipes worn thin or porous with age
- pitch fibre pipe (made from wood fibre and bitumen, and fitted to many homes built from the 1950s to the 1970s) that has only just begun to go oval, once it has been re-rounded
Relining won't fix:
- A collapsed pipe. If the pipe has caved in, there's no clear path for the liner and nothing to hold its shape. That needs digging, which our collapsed drain repair page explains.
- A badly deformed pipe. Pitch fibre that has flattened or blistered, or plastic crushed out of round, needs replacing.
- Severe offsets. Where two pipe ends have moved so far apart that they no longer line up, a liner can't bridge the step.
- A dip or back fall. A liner follows the pipe it sits in. If a section sags and holds water, the lined pipe sags and holds water too.
- What goes down the drain. A lined pipe blocks with fat and wipes just like any other. If that's your problem, you need drain unblocking, not a liner.
If the camera shows any of these, we'll tell you before you spend money on lining that won't last. Our drain repairs page sets out the other options.
Recent drain relining jobs
Relining work our engineers have finished recently, with stills from the before and after footage.
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. Service: drain-relining.
Our relining guarantee
Your patch or liner comes with our 10-year guarantee on relining and repairs. Because we film the pipe once the lining has set, there's a clear record of the finished work to check against if you ever need us back. The full terms are on our guarantee page.
Areas we cover for drain relining
We reline drains across Dorset and Hampshire, with engineers based in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch. Find your town below.
Drain relining FAQs
What is drain relining?
It's a way of repairing a damaged pipe from the inside. A resin-soaked liner is fed into the drain, pressed against the old pipe wall and left to harden, forming a new jointless pipe within the old one. It seals cracks, leaking joints and root entry points without digging up the ground above.
How long does a relined drain last?
Liner systems are designed and tested for a service life of around 50 years, provided the pipe was properly cleaned and the resin fully cured. How long yours lasts depends on the quality of the installation. Our relining carries a 10-year guarantee on relining and repairs, and the after footage shows the condition we left it in.
What does drain relining cost per metre?
Our full relining price is £80 to £150 per metre. Where your job lands depends on the pipe size, the length, the number of bends and side connections, and how much cleaning the pipe needs first. A single patch over one fault starts at £250. You get a fixed price after the camera survey.
When would pipe lining not be an effective solution?
Lining isn't the answer when the pipe has collapsed, is badly out of shape, has joints so far out of line that a liner can't bridge them, or sags so water sits in it. Those sections need digging out and relaying. We'll show you the footage and explain why before we quote.
Can tree roots damage drains, and will relining stop them?
Yes, roots are one of the commonest causes of drain damage. They grow in through cracks and joints looking for water, then widen the gap as they thicken. A liner stops them because it has no joints. We cut the roots out first, then line the pipe so they can't find a way back in.
Can pitch fibre pipes be relined?
Often, yes. Pitch fibre pipe tends to go oval and blister with age. If the change in shape is mild, we re-round the pipe with a special tool and then line it, which restores a smooth bore. If it has flattened badly or split, it needs replacing instead. The camera tells us which.
Does relining make the pipe smaller?
Slightly. A liner is a few millimetres thick, so the pipe loses a little of its inside diameter. On a normal house drain this doesn't affect flow, and the smooth resin surface can carry waste better than old clay with a gap at every joint. We measure the pipe first so the right liner is used.
Do I have to be in while you reline the drain?
It helps if you're in at the start and the end, so we can show you the footage and agree the work. In between we need access to the manholes and, if a branch runs from inside, to that room. Water use has to stop while the resin sets, and we'll tell you when taps can run again.
Find out if your drain can be relined
Send your survey report or a photo with a callback request, or call 0800 246 5347, and we'll tell you what we'd expect to do before we visit.