Drainage Guides
Straight answers to the questions we get asked on the phone every week, written by the engineers who do the work across West Lothian, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Lanarkshire and Fife.
Why Does My Drain Keep Blocking?
If a drain clears and then blocks again within a few weeks, the blockage was never the real problem. Something in the pipe is catching waste every time it passes. Here is what we usually fin...
Read the guideToilet Not Flushing or Backing Up: What to Check First
A toilet that fills to the rim and drains away slowly is telling you something is restricting the pipe. Where the restriction sits decides whether this is a five minute job or a drainage cal...
Read the guideBlocked Outside Drain: What You Can Safely Do Yourself
An outside gully or chamber that is overflowing is unpleasant but often straightforward. Some of it you can deal with yourself with gloves and a bucket. Some of it you should not touch. This...
Read the guideSigns of a Collapsed Drain
A collapsed drain rarely announces itself. It shows up as a series of smaller annoyances that people put up with for months. Catching it early is the difference between a patch liner and exc...
Read the guideWho Is Responsible for a Blocked Drain in Scotland?
This is the question we are asked most, and the answer decides who pays. The general principle in Scotland is simple: the pipework that serves only your property is yours to maintain, and th...
Read the guideWhat a CCTV Drain Survey Shows and What It Costs
A CCTV drain survey puts a camera through the drainage run so you can see the condition of the pipe rather than guess at it. People book one for three reasons: they are buying a property, a ...
Read the guidePre-Purchase Homebuyer Drain Surveys Explained
A standard home report or building survey does not put a camera in the drains. It notes what is visible and recommends a specialist inspection if anything looks doubtful. If you are buying, ...
Read the guideDrain Repairs: Patch Lining, Relining and Excavation Explained
Once a CCTV survey has found a defect, the next question is how to repair it. There are three broad answers, and the right one depends on how much of the original pipe is still there. Here i...
Read the guideRoot Ingress in Drains: Causes, Removal and Prevention
Roots do not break into a sound, sealed pipe. They find an existing defect, usually a hairline crack or an open joint, follow the moisture and then grow inside where there is water, air and ...
Read the guideSmells Coming From Drains: What Causes Them
Foul air sits in every drain. It only reaches you when something that should be holding it back has failed, and there are only a handful of things that can be. Working through them in order ...
Read the guideDrain Unblocking Cost: What Actually Drives the Price
Nobody can give an honest fixed figure for a blocked drain sight unseen, because two jobs that sound identical on the phone can take twenty minutes or half a day. What we can do is set out e...
Read the guideDrain Survey Cost: What You Are Paying For
A survey price is not just camera time. Most of the value sits in what you get afterwards, and reports vary enormously between contractors. Here is what changes the figure and what a report ...
Read the guideDrain Repair and Relining Cost Explained
Repair pricing follows the method, and the method follows the pipe. Once a camera has shown what the defect is and where it sits, the options narrow quickly and the cost becomes predictable....
Read the guideWhat Happens if a Drain Survey Finds a Problem
Most surveys find something. Very few find something that stops a sale or needs work that week. The useful question is not whether a defect exists but which category it falls into, and a dec...
Read the guideBlocked Drain Emergency: What to Do First
A drain that has stopped completely does not give you much thinking time. Waste water has nowhere to go, so it looks for the lowest opening it can find, and in most Scottish homes that is a ...
Read the guideHow to Unblock a Sink or Waste Pipe
Most slow sinks are blocked within a metre of the plughole, which is why a careful half hour with a bucket and a screwdriver clears a good proportion of them. The trick is working in the rig...
Read the guideBlocked Drains After Heavy Rain
A drain that behaves perfectly for weeks and then floods the moment there is a downpour is telling you something quite specific. The pipe has enough capacity for normal use but not enough fo...
Read the guideWhat Not to Put Down Your Drains
Almost every blockage we clear in a domestic property is made of the same few things, and none of them are exotic. Understanding why each one causes trouble is more useful than a bare list, ...
Read the guideGurgling Drains and Slow Plugholes
Gurgling is the sound of air being pulled through water where it should not have to be. In a healthy drainage system, air moves freely through the vent at the top of the soil stack and water...
Read the guideYour CCTV Drain Survey Report Explained
A CCTV survey report can look impenetrable the first time you open one. There is footage, a run of abbreviations, measurements to the nearest tenth of a metre and a set of grades. Underneath...
Read the guideDrain Tracing and Mapping Explained
Very few older properties in central Scotland have accurate drainage plans. Runs were laid, extensions were added, garages were built over the top and nothing was recorded. Drain tracing is ...
Read the guideLandlord Drain Surveys in Scotland
Drainage sits squarely inside a Scottish landlord's repairing obligations, and it is one of the few building elements where a tenant can create a fault, a landlord pays for it, and neither p...
Read the guidePre-Purchase Drain Survey: A Buyer's Checklist
Scottish home reports do not cover private drainage in any meaningful way. The surveyor lifts nothing, sees nothing below ground and will typically note that drainage was not inspected. Sinc...
Read the guideDrain Surveys for Insurance Claims
Buildings insurance in the UK commonly includes cover for underground services, and drainage claims are frequently settled, but they are also frequently refused. The difference usually comes...
Read the guideDrain Relining Explained
Relining is the reason a broken drain under a driveway no longer automatically means digging up the driveway. A resin impregnated liner is drawn into the existing pipe, inflated against the ...
Read the guidePatch Lining or Full Relining: Which Do You Need?
Both are no dig repairs and both use the same principle, but they solve different problems. Choosing badly in either direction is expensive: a full liner where a patch would do wastes money,...
Read the guideTree Roots in Drains: Removal and Prevention
Root ingress is one of the most common findings on any survey of older drainage, and one of the most misunderstood. Roots do not drill through sound pipe. They find a defect that already exi...
Read the guideCollapsed Drain Repair: What to Expect
A collapse is the point at which the pipe has lost its shape rather than simply cracked. It is the most serious thing a survey can find, but it is also a well defined problem with a well def...
Read the guideExcavation Drain Repair Explained
No dig methods have made excavation much less common than it once was, but they have not made it obsolete. There remain faults that can only be fixed by removing the pipe and laying a new on...
Read the guideDrainage Regulations in Scotland Explained
Drainage in Scotland is governed by a different set of rules from England and Wales, and the differences catch people out regularly. Three bodies matter: your local authority for building st...
Read the guideSeptic Tank Maintenance in Scotland
A septic tank does not treat sewage so much as separate it. Solids settle, fats float, and the liquid in the middle passes out to a soakaway where the soil does the actual treatment. Almost ...
Read the guideSoakaways and Surface Water Drainage
Surface water has to go somewhere, and in much of central Scotland it cannot simply be piped to a sewer. Soakaways are the usual answer, and they work well when they are sized for the roof a...
Read the guideGrease Management for Commercial Kitchens
Every commercial kitchen produces fats, oils and grease, and every drainage failure in hospitality that we attend is caused by them. The pattern is always the same: the run copes for a coupl...
Read the guidePlanned Commercial Drainage Maintenance
For a commercial site, the real cost of a drainage failure is rarely the invoice. It is the closed kitchen, the shut toilets in a retail unit, the lost trading evening, the complaint to envi...
Read the guideNeed help with a drainage problem?
Professional drainage services designed to resolve drainage issues quickly and efficiently. From emergency drain unblocking and blocked drains to CCTV surveys, drain repairs, and commercial drainage services, Curran Drainage Services provides dependable support for homes and businesses throughout Central Scotland.