Blocked drains cleared: drain unblocking with the price agreed first
Rods, a jetter or a hand auger, chosen for your pipe. A price you agree first, and a drain you can watch running clear.
- Drain unblocking from £80
- No call-out fee
- A fixed price agreed before any work starts
- If the same drain blocks again within 30 days, we come back free
- With you usually within 60 minutes across Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch
Signs you need drain unblocking
Most blocked drains give a warning before they overflow. Drain unblocking is quicker and simpler at that early stage, when the pipe is slow rather than full, so it pays to act on the first signs.
Inside your home
- Water lingers in the sink, bath or shower tray before it drains away.
- The toilet bowl fills close to the rim when flushed, then empties slowly.
- A plughole gurgles when another appliance empties.
- A sewage smell hangs around one room and comes back after cleaning.
Outside your home
- The cover of an inspection chamber (the small manhole where pipes meet) is wet around its edges or has lifted.
- The gully under the kitchen waste pipe fills up and stays full.
- Paper and waste sit in a chamber instead of flowing past.
- One patch of garden stays soggy or smells in dry weather.
What is usually inside the pipe
Wet wipes cause more household blockages than anything else, often bound together with fat from the kitchen. After those come tree roots through old joints, silt and stones washed into gullies, limescale in soil pipes, and the odd toy, phone or toothbrush.
Drain rodding, jetting or hand tools: how we choose
Three kinds of kit clear nearly every domestic blockage. The engineer picks one on site, after finding where the blockage sits and what it is made of, and tells you why before starting.
| Method | How it works | Best for | Less suited to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hand tools | A professional plunger, a hand auger (a coiled steel cable turned by hand), or taking the trap off to clean it | Blockages within a metre or two of a toilet, sink, bath or shower | Anything in the underground drain |
| Drain rodding | Flexible rods screwed together and pushed from a manhole or rodding point, with a corkscrew, rubber plunger or scraper on the tip | Soft blockages of paper and waste in the main drain, close to a chamber | Hard fat, scale, roots and long runs |
| Drain jetting | A hose with a nozzle that fires water backwards at high pressure, which drives it along the pipe and scours the walls | Packed fat, wipes, silt and scale, long runs, drains that keep blocking | Badly cracked or broken pipes, which we look at with a camera first |
When rodding is enough
Drain rodding is fast, quiet and needs no water supply. For a fresh blockage of paper and waste near a chamber, a few firm pushes with a plunger head usually break it up, and you hear the water rush away. It is also a sensible first try on old clay pipes when we don't yet know their condition.
When we bring the jetter
Rods punch a hole through a blockage. They don't clean the pipe. If the walls are coated in fat or scale, the next load of paper catches on what is left. A jetter scrubs the whole inside of the pipe, which is why we use it on repeat blockages and kitchen drains. Read more about drain jetting.
Checking the result with a camera
Where a drain has blocked before, or the cause isn't obvious, we push a small waterproof camera through once it is clear. We show you the camera footage before we leave, so you see the clean pipe, or the crack, root or dip that caused the trouble. If you need a written record for an insurer or a buyer, book a full CCTV drain survey.
How we unblock your drain
- You describe it, or send a photo
Call 0800 246 5347, or request a callback and add a picture of the plughole, toilet or open chamber. Knowing which fittings are affected tells us if it's one waste pipe or the main drain.
- We find the blockage point
The engineer lifts the covers along the run. A full chamber next to an empty one means the blockage is in the pipe between them.
- You agree the price, then we clear it
You hear a fixed price before anything starts. Then it's hand tools, rods or the jetter, depending on what we found.
- We test the whole run
Taps run and toilets flush while we watch water pass through each chamber, so you know every branch is flowing.
- You hear what caused it
We show you what came out, explain how to keep it from coming back, and point out anything that needs a closer look.
Why drains keep blocking
A drain that blocks once is usually bad luck. A drain that blocks every few months has a cause that rodding alone won't remove. The usual suspects:
- Habits. Wipes, cotton buds and cooking fat build up over months, even in small amounts.
- Roots. Fine roots creep into old clay joints and form a net that catches paper.
- A dip in the pipe. Ground movement can leave a sag (engineers call it a belly) where waste settles instead of flowing.
- Displaced or cracked joints. A lip where two pipes no longer line up snags everything that passes.
- Pitch fibre pipe. Laid in many homes built from the 1950s to the 1970s, it can blister and flatten until the bore narrows.
- Worn benching. The shaped channels at the bottom of a manhole can crack, leaving ledges where waste gathers.
If we suspect one of these, we'll say so and suggest a camera check, rather than coming back to rod the same pipe again. Many structural faults can be fixed without digging by drain relining. Our guide to the signs of a collapsed drain explains what to watch for.
When a blocked drain can't wait
Sewage coming up inside, an overflowing manhole, or your only toilet out of action all need a faster response than a booked visit. Our emergency drain unblocking page covers the steps to take before the engineer arrives, and how soon one can reach you.
Drain unblocking prices
- A single blocked toilet, sink, bath or showerfrom£80
- Most blocked drain jobs, inside or outside£80 to £200
- High-pressure drain jettingfrom£150
- CCTV drain survey with written reportfrom£150
Included: the visit, finding the blockage, clearing it, testing every chamber on the run, and tidying up the work area. No call-out fee.
What changes the price: how far the blockage is from the nearest access point, whether there is a manhole at all, hard material such as fat or scale that needs jetting rather than rods, and more than one separate blockage.
All prices include VAT. The same price day, night, weekends and bank holidays. Every rate is on our drain unblocking price list.
What drain unblocking can and can't fix
It can fix a pipe choked with wipes, paper, fat, silt or a lost object. It can cut back roots for a while, and it gets the house working normally again, usually in one visit.
It can't fix a pipe that is broken, collapsed or sagging. Clearing it gets water moving, but the fault stays and the blockage comes back. For those, the answer is a camera survey and then a repair or relining. Drain clearance also can't solve a blockage in the public sewer, the shared pipe beyond your boundary. Your water company clears those at no cost to you, and we'll tell you if that is where the problem lies.
Recent drain unblocking jobs
A few of the latest blockages our engineers have cleared, with the cause and the fix for each.
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-unblocking.
Our drain unblocking guarantee
Two promises come with every unblock:
- If we can't clear it, you don't pay.
- If the same drain blocks again within 30 days, we come back free.
The free return doesn't cover a fresh load of wipes or fat, and the engineer will explain that on the day. Full terms are on our guarantee page.
Areas we cover for drain unblocking
Our engineers are based in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch and clear blocked drains across Dorset and Hampshire, including the towns below.
Drain unblocking FAQs
Who do I call for a blocked drain?
Call a drainage engineer. They carry the rods, jetting kit and cameras that a blocked underground pipe needs, and they can trace where the blockage sits. If the problem is in a shared pipe or the public sewer, the water company clears it instead, and a good engineer will tell you so rather than charge you.
Do plumbers unblock drains?
Some do, mostly sinks, baths and toilets where the blockage is in the trap or waste pipe. Few plumbers carry the rods, jetter and camera that underground drains and manholes need. Indoors, a blocked drain plumber and a drainage engineer overlap. Outside, you need drainage kit. Our engineers handle both, so one visit covers the route from plughole to sewer.
Can a blocked drain unblock itself?
Sometimes, for a while. A partial blockage of paper can soften and move on, so the water drains and the problem seems to vanish. Wipes, fat and roots don't break down, though, and they catch the next load. A drain that clears by itself and then blocks again is telling you something is holding waste in the pipe.
How long does drain unblocking take?
A straightforward blockage near a manhole usually takes under an hour once the engineer is on site. It takes longer when there is no easy access point, when the pipe needs jetting to shift hard fat or roots, or when we run a camera through afterwards to find the cause. You'll get an honest estimate up front.
How is drain rodding different from jetting?
Rodding pushes flexible rods through the pipe to break a blockage apart, which suits soft waste near a manhole. Jetting sends water at high pressure through a hose, which washes fat, scale and silt off the pipe walls as well as clearing the blockage. Put simply, rodding opens the pipe and jetting cleans it. We choose based on what is stuck and where.
Do you charge a call-out fee?
No call-out fee. You pay for the work itself, at a fixed price agreed with you before anything starts. If the engineer finds the job is bigger than described, for example a collapsed section rather than a simple blockage, you hear the new price and decide before any extra work goes ahead. All prices include VAT.
What if you can't unblock my drain?
If we can't clear it, you don't pay. When a drain won't clear, the cause is usually a collapsed section or something solid wedged in broken pipe. We'll show you what we found on camera where we can, explain the options in plain terms, and give you a fixed price for the repair so you can compare it with other quotes.
Is the water company responsible for blocked drains?
Only for some of them. Since October 2011, water companies in England and Wales have been responsible for shared drains, for the part of your drain that runs beyond your boundary, and for the public sewer. Pipes that serve only your home and sit inside your boundary are yours. Across most of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, the sewerage company is Wessex Water.
Book drain unblocking at a fixed price
Call 0800 246 5347 or send a photo of the problem with a callback request, and an engineer will tell you what it is likely to be and what it will cost.