The Drain Inspector
Our Drain Inspection Checklist
Everything we look at on a CCTV drain inspection, so you know what you're getting before you book. Print it and tick it off with us on the day.
Before we arrive
- Tell us about the problem. What you’ve noticed (smells, slow drains, gurgling, blockages, damp, rats), when it started and anything already done about it.
- Find your inspection chambers. These are the manhole covers in your drive, path, patio or garden. Let us know if you can’t find any.
- Lift the covers if it’s safe to. Only if they lift easily and you’re confident doing it. If not, leave them to us.
- Clear access. Move cars, bins or pots off the covers and along the line of the drain if you can.
- Parking. Keep a parking space for our small vehicle. Any parking charges are payable on the day, and time spent parking counts towards the inspection, which may take it past the first hour.
- Pets and children. Keep them away from open chambers while we work.
On the day: the chambers
- Each chamber located and opened, and the cover and frame checked for damage or rocking.
- Chamber condition: the walls, the channel along the bottom and the sloped sides (benching) for cracks, missing mortar or build-up.
- Water level and flow: whether the chamber is dry, flowing normally, backed up or holding water.
- Which pipes come in and go out, and roughly where they lead (kitchen, bathroom, gutters, next door).
On the day: inside the pipes
- Camera through each drain run we can reach from the chambers, with you watching the screen.
- Pipe material and size where we can tell (clay, plastic, pitch fibre, cast iron, concrete).
- Blockages and build-up: fat, wipes, scale, silt, stones or rubble.
- Cracks and fractures in the pipe wall.
- Joints: joints that have moved apart or slipped out of line.
- Tree and plant roots coming in through joints or cracks.
- Deformed or collapsed sections, including pitch fibre pipes that have blistered or flattened.
- Dips and standing water where a length has sunk and holds water.
- Connections that stick into the pipe or have been badly made.
- Old repairs: liners, patches or replaced sections and how they’re holding up.
- Distance to each fault, measured from the chamber we went in from.
On the day: finding the fault from above
- Camera head located from the surface with a locator at each fault we find.
- Fault position marked on the ground so any repair digs in the right place.
- Route of the drain traced on the surface where it helps explain the problem.
Before we leave
- Talked through what we found, in plain English, with the footage.
- What sort of work it might need, so you know what to ask a repair contractor for.
- Whose drain it is. Whether the problem looks to be in your private drain or in a shared drain or sewer the water company looks after.
- Covers back on and the area left as we found it (apart from the marks).
What’s not on the list: repairs, jetting, unblocking, digging and formal coded survey reports. We’re an inspection-only service. Why inspection, not survey?
Want the longer explanation? Infinite Lives has written up why inspections beat surveys for finding faults.
Good to know
- Access. If we can’t get to or into your drains on the day through no fault of our own, you’re expected to cover our costs.
- Obstructions. Sometimes the camera can’t get through to the main problem because of other issues in the drain. We’re not responsible for these obstructions, and we don’t carry high-pressure jetting equipment to clear them on an inspection.