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What is a drainage survey?

A camera goes into the pipe, records what is there, and produces a graded report. That is all it is. What differs between firms is what you are left holding afterwards.

What happens on the day

We open every accessible chamber first and work out the layout before anything goes into a pipe. In this part of Warrington that step matters more than anywhere — it is how we find out whether the run serving your house also serves three others.

Then the camera goes into each run and travels it as far as it goes. You watch the screen with us; nothing is kept back for a report later.

What you are given

Each defect is coded to MSCC5 — the Manual of Sewer Condition Classification — and graded for severity. The coding matters because it is a common language: any contractor, engineer or insurer reads the same code the same way.

Every defect is fixed by distance from a named chamber and by depth. Those two numbers are what let a contractor quote without a second visit, and what let an insurer treat the report as evidence.

How long it takes

Around an hour for a typical Padgate semi. Terraced property with shared chambers can take longer, simply because establishing the layout is a larger part of the work.

The report and the full narrated footage reach you the same day.

When to have one

Before buying, when a blockage keeps returning, when a building is cracking and nobody can say why, when an insurer asks, and after repair work you have no other way of checking.

And in WA1 and WA2 there is a fifth: when you and your neighbours cannot agree whose drain it is. That is a question of fact, and a survey answers it.

The short answers

In brief

What is a drainage survey?
A drainage survey is an inspection of the drainage serving a property using a camera pushed or driven along the inside of the pipe. It records the condition of every accessible run, identifies defects such as cracks, displaced joints, root ingress and pipe deformation, and locates each one by distance from a fixed access point. The output is a written report coded to MSCC5 plus the full video.
How is it different from a drain inspection or a drainage survey?
They are the same job under different names. "Drain inspection", "drainage survey", "camera survey" and "sewer inspection" all describe a camera going down the pipe. What varies between firms is what you get afterwards — some hand over a verbal opinion, others a coded report and the footage.
How long does the survey take?
Around an hour for a typical Padgate house. Larger properties, several access points or a run that has to be jetted first will take longer, and we say so before we attend.
Reasons people book one

Which of these is yours?

Call 01925 357152