London City Drains - Drainage news

Investment plea for London sewers

 
Investment is urgently needed to upgrade London’s drains & sewers and reduce the threat posed by climate change and flash floods, experts have warned.

The severity and regularity of flash floods is expected to increase as more of London’s green spaces are concreted over and the population rises.

In 1859 Sir Joseph Bazalgette used 318 million bricks to create an underground grid to transfer London’s sewage to the east of the city.
 
It is now processed and turned into electricity at treatment works in Beckton and Crossness.
London’s unusual combined sewer system deals both with water flushed from homes and incoming rainfall from drains.

Climate change is expected to increase the regularity and severity of flash floods, placing greater demands on the system.

This will be compounded by the vanishing areas of green spaces able to soak up rainfall and a 800,000 population increase predicted by 2016.

Here’s another movie of a blocked drain London City Drains cctv survey.

In this example our London drain engineer was making a cctv survey of a 4 inch diameter earthenware/cast iron drain at a home in London.

As the cctv survey footage shows, the drain is misaligned, meaning the section of drain pipe must be replaced to prevent a future drain blockage or flooding problem.

The drain survey video footage, drain survey inspection report and drain schematic can be viewed on our london cctv drain inspection survey page.

Alternatively you can download just the drain inspection video by clicking on this link:

Off set drain, cctv drain inspection video - Greater London

London’s Sewer System - Blocked drain london - london drainage history, advice and tips

Over 2,800 million litres of waste produced every day
349 sewage treatment works
Over 2,400 sewage pumping stations
Over 67,700 km (42,000 miles) of sewers
Europe’s largest sewage treatment works at Beckton, East London

Hot cooking fat solidifies when poured down the plughole. Each year over 1000 tonnes of fat cause 36,000 sewer and drain blockages. Dispose of the fat by letting it set in an old tin, and put in a bin.
 
Until around 1800 the river Thames had supported a large fishing industry, which caught and sold a wide range of species, including lobsters and salmon. But by 1805 only 150,000 cesspits had been built to serve London’s one million inhabitants and within a decade many householders had begun to illegally connect their overflowing cesspits to surface water drains which flowed into the river Thames, the main source of drinking water for London. The rising tide of sewage rendered it virtually lifeless - the river began to smell, especially in hot weather.
The state of the river became a well-publicised scandal that resulted in the Public Health Act of 1848. This established the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers. The new Commission quickly ordered a major survey of the London sewers, which were found to be inadequate and in major need of repair.

Outbreaks of cholera had occurred in 1832 but in 1849 a further outbreak, during which the death toll was estimated at 2,000 Londoners per week, prompted Dr John Snow and William Farr to conduct a study of the Broad Street Public Well in Golden Square, Soho. As a result, they realised contaminated water caused cholera and not “foul vapours” in the air as had been widely believed.

In an attempt to curb disease the Government passed the 1852 Metropolis Water Act. This introduced a number of measures including making the slow-sand filtration of water and the covering of service reservoirs mandatory and also ensuring that, in order to avoid proximity to sewage outfalls, the abstraction of water only took place above Teddington Lock on the River Thames.

In around 1854, the cash-strapped Commission of Sewers was replaced by the Metropolitan Board of Works whose Chief Engineer, Joseph Bazalgette, devised a sewage interception scheme designed to solve London’s sewage problem. Bazalgette planned to construct large intercepting sewers to collect flows from the existing river outfalls and convey the waste to East London. Here it could be stored in storage lagoons for up to 9 hours and released into the River on the ebb tide flow to the sea.

Bazalgette’s scheme was initially rejected on the grounds of cost, but in June 1858 the stench from the river Thames became so bad that it became impossible to continue business in the Houses of Parliament and action was demanded. As a result, the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, rushed through an act allowing the Board of Works to raise the money to pay for the works by imposing charges on Londoners. Bazalgette’s plans had been so well honed that he was able to begin at once and by 1874 the system was fully operational.

We’ve uploaded a cctv video of a drain inspection survey to the London City Drains website.

In this case, the surveyed drain was a earthenware/PVC construct - we found the drain to be in good condition with some silt build up.

You can download the drain survey video from the London City Drains homepage, or direct by clicking on this link:

London City Drains, drain inspection cctv survey video

One of the biggest technical advances to improve blocked drain clearing services in London, is the implementation of cctv drain survey techniques. This allows us to look inside drains and make a damage assessment without the need for expensive drain excavation.

In this way, experienced drainage engineers are able to save you a lot of time and money by quickly diagnosing your drainage problem and deciding on the best course of action. In addition to drawing on their experience, drainage engineers can get confirming evidence of whether you drain problem can be fixed with drain jet cleaning [drain jetting] alone, or if drain excavation and repair is necessary.

Plus cctv drain and sewer surveys are great for the customer - in addition our drainage engineer’s advice you can see the problem yourself on the cctv survey footage of your problem sewer or drain.

To give you a better idea, we’re currently working to add footage of our previous cctv drain surveys to the London City Drains website.

You’ll be able to see clips from real cctv drain and sewer surveys in London.

Hopefully the streaming video feed of ‘what goes down the drain’ will be available on the London City Drains website later this week - watch this space!!

Now, at London City Drains we have a 24 hour free phone number for anyone suffering a drainage emergency! Whether its a blocked drain, sewer, sink or toilet that you need to unblock fast, we can help!

If you need emergency drain services give our engineers a call on:

 0800 007 5309

Our experienced drainage engineers will be quick to respond!

At London City Drains we’re offering a free cctv camera survey of your drain or sewer, with every jet clean.

The CCTV drain survey will give you a detailed look at the inside of your drains - our drainage engineer can run through an assessment of the condition, the best way to avoid any future problems. Free of charge!!

The following terms and conditions apply:

* Terms and conditions for free CCTV Camera Survey.

1) Not valid for business, commercial or industrial.

2) Jet cleaning minimum 2 hours.

3) Adequate access required to insert camera.

4) Written report and DVD not included. This is available if required, at a charge.

5) Pipe diameter minimum 4 inch, maximum 6 inch.

6) The offer is only valid while the engineer is on site undertaking the jet clean and not after.

Another satisfied customer of London City Drains:

“What can I say , fast, efficient and reasonable, absolutley fantastic. I am delighted. Couldnd be any better, KDL “

Here’s a recent review from a London City Drains customer:

“I recently called out City Drains and was pleasantly surprised at the speed in which they responded, 21 minutes!

Furthermore, they demonstrated a professional attitude at all times and were very thorough in their work. At the end of the jet clean they went so far as to carry out a cctv survey of the drain, free of charge! just to make sure the job was completely done.

Their rates are fair and I have received a more than adequate service. Well done boys!”

It’s funny how people seem to make the same mistake over and over and usually never learn first time round. Animals do, and we are supposed to be the logical ones?

Sometimes you come across a job which by right could be put right first time round. But its funny how, because of peoples perception of tradesmen, and I must admit, also from an economical point of view, people aren’t willing to spend that bit extra to correct a problem with a permanent solution.

Instead, they choose to call you out again and again and again for the same problem. In the end they think that you’re not doing the job correctly and choose to call somebody else who may rip them off or if they are lucky have the problem corrected once and for all by following the recommendations that you gave them to begin with.

What is the problem with this scenario?
Well let’s begin with an economical point of view.

For example: An engineer gets called to an emergency blockage. The blockage is cleared as fast as possible. The recommendation given is to have the line jet cleaned otherwise your drain will re-block in no time at all. It involves 1 extra hour of work. The customer decides not to go along with the recommendation and two months later calls you out again. Again you clear the blockage as quickly as possible and you charge the customer again as the recommendation wasn’t followed. This happens several times throughout the year. By the end of the year, the customer has paid for the same job 4 or maybe 5 times!

If they had followed your recommendation to begin with, he/she would not have had to call you out several times and they would have saved a lot of money on emergency call outs. You don’t have to be smart to work that one out.

Let us not forget also the calling out of the other contractor; I wonder how much he charged to get the job done? The same or more than if they had gone through the contractor’s original recommendation when it was first made, that’s for sure.

This brings me to the second problem scenario. And that is the false and unfair perception by the customer of the first contractor, who only tried to help by giving you the best advice to begin with and ended up being the bad guy. All because again the recommendation wasn’t followed through.

The moral of the story: London City Drains is here to help you help yourselves.
Listen to our advice and act on it, you wont regret it!