Hi all,
Looking to see if anyone has any advice. I recently bought a new house, and the drains were not clearing so I ordered a CCTV survey. The survey discovered a drain test plug (big metal thing with a rubber gasket on) had been dropped down the drain during some previous building works and rather than retrieve it the previous owners (or their builders) had tried to push it all the way down into the main sewer.
Unfortunately it got stuck near the end and they broke several sets of rods trying to shift it, so what's now down there is 3 sets of broken rods and a big metal plug obstructing my drain.
The blockage is well under the road in Thames Water's bit. The drain company said that, as the fault was clearly caused by the previous owner of the house, Thames Water could charge me several thousand pounds to clear it as they may have to dig up the road to do so (the drain is in the middle of the road, so the whole road would apparently have to be closed).
Things I'd like to know, if anyone does:
Any help is much appreciated as I'm in a right conundrum over this
Looking to see if anyone has any advice. I recently bought a new house, and the drains were not clearing so I ordered a CCTV survey. The survey discovered a drain test plug (big metal thing with a rubber gasket on) had been dropped down the drain during some previous building works and rather than retrieve it the previous owners (or their builders) had tried to push it all the way down into the main sewer.
Unfortunately it got stuck near the end and they broke several sets of rods trying to shift it, so what's now down there is 3 sets of broken rods and a big metal plug obstructing my drain.
The blockage is well under the road in Thames Water's bit. The drain company said that, as the fault was clearly caused by the previous owner of the house, Thames Water could charge me several thousand pounds to clear it as they may have to dig up the road to do so (the drain is in the middle of the road, so the whole road would apparently have to be closed).
Things I'd like to know, if anyone does:
- Can Thames Water charge me for it? Their website doesn't mention that they can do this, but it's actually pretty light on detail at all.
- Should I ring Thames Water to discuss, or will they attempt to get the address off of me as the drain is blocked? I am very nervous about putting an emergency repair in motion which I can't stop and that I will eventually pay an awful lot of money for
- Are the drain company just trying to get a few hundred extra quid to try to retrieve it when I could have it done for free?
Any help is much appreciated as I'm in a right conundrum over this