We attended to an emergency blocked drain in Surrey Hills on Friday night and found the shower and basin to be filling up with water and gurgling when the home owner had a shower or flushed the toilet. This was quite a complicated blocked drain we needed to get a sewer plan from the local water authority. This plan outlines where drains should run to and termination points such as the boundary trap.
Once we investigated what was happening we returned to site and attempted to locate boundary trap in the front of the property.
We located the cast iron boundary trap that was approximately 2.5m left to right and approximately 1.5m inside boundary when you are looking from the street. Once the boundary trap lid was removed we noticed that the shaft was blocked. We used our drainage equipment to try and clear the blockage in addition to using CCTV equipment. The CCTV is like a pair of eyes inside the drain for the plumber. It gives us a good visual of what is happening inside the drain and what is causing the blocked drain. For instance, the drain could be full of tree roots or the drain pipe could be damaged and broken.
In this case this boundary trap feeds the next door neighbour and was blocked at the base of an old trap. We cleared through with drain machine and tested neighbours drains that runs into this boundary. It was still blocked.
Our next course of action action was to pull out the toilet in the ensuite and insert CCTV. We now saw that the line was totally blocked and traced the line. Our equipment was getting stuck at a paver location at the front of the property.
We then set up the drainage machine and tried to clear the blocked drain through the toilet branch located at the boundary at front approx 500mm next to the neighbours boundary trap.
We then moved the drain machine and cleared the lead off with machine. As you can see in this picture from the CCTV equipment, tree roots were the main cause of this blocked drain. Checked with CCTV and lead off to boundary has cracked and there are tree roots present. Cut back with machine up lead off and check ok. Flush through with water, test toilets and fill bath and flush through ok. Drain holds water within 1 meter of trap lead off.
Cleared through boundary with cutter x2 cables check with CCTV and there are tree roots
Present outside property which will need to be cleared out by local water authority. Put the existing toilet back into position and tested. When you need an expert who can solve your blocked drains on the same day and guarantee a long term solution, call the blocked drain experts. Service Experts 1300390045.
