Drainage Services Across the West Midlands

From our Birmingham office we reach central Birmingham in around 20 minutes. Solihull, Coventry, and Walsall are typically 25 to 35 minutes. The outer reaches of Dudley, Wolverhampton, Stourbridge, and Halesowen are usually 35 to 45 minutes. We aim to give you an accurate ETA when you call rather than a vague window.

The region sits on Mercia Mudstone, a heavy clay that contracts in dry weather and expands in wet weather. This seasonal movement stresses pipe joints over many decades until they crack. Combine that with the age of the housing stock, widespread pitch-fibre pipes from the 1960s, and the density of mature trees in residential gardens, and you have the conditions for a high volume of drainage failures.

Severn Trent Water is responsible for the public sewers beneath the roads. You are responsible for the private drain that runs from your property to the public sewer. If the blockage is in the section you share with one or more neighbours it may be a private shared drain, which means you would need to split the cost of any repair. We clarify this on every job before recommending any work.

Yes. New-build drainage problems are common in the West Midlands because developers sometimes wash concrete and mortar into drainage runs during construction. We get called to developments in areas like Cheswick Green, Dickens Heath, and Castle Bromwich fairly regularly to jet out construction debris that was left in the system at handover. PVC pipes on new builds should last decades, but they need to be clear to function properly.

Pitch-fibre was a common pipe material used from the 1950s through to the 1970s. It is made from bitumen-impregnated wood pulp, and after 50 or 60 years in the ground it deforms into an oval or egg shape. Water no longer drains freely, solids catch, and blockages recur every few months. Many properties across Coventry, Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, and the south Birmingham suburbs still have pitch-fibre runs beneath them. The only long-term fix is relining or replacement.

Yes, and we strongly recommend it. A pre-purchase drain survey is one of the most cost-effective checks you can do on any older West Midlands property. Clay pipe systems in Victorian terraces can have decades of root ingress and fractures that are invisible from above. We provide a written report and DVD recording that you can share with solicitors or use to negotiate on the purchase price.

Yes. We work with landlords, property managers, restaurants, schools, and commercial premises across the county. We carry high-capacity jetting equipment and CCTV units on all vehicles, so we can handle commercial-volume blockages in the same visit. Planned maintenance contracts are available for commercial clients who want scheduled jetting rather than reactive call-outs.

Standard drain unblocking starts from £100 with no call-out fee. The price depends on whether the blockage requires simple rodding, high-pressure jetting, or a combination of both. We give a fixed price before we start work, so there are no surprises. Emergency call-outs outside normal hours are priced transparently on the phone before we attend.