Blocked Drains & Drain Unblocking in Twickenham, London

Typically £80–£250, depending on access, how far into the run the blockage sits, and whether a CCTV survey is needed to locate it first. A straightforward gully or internal waste clear sits toward the lower end; a full jetting visit on a longer run, or one that needs a survey first, sits higher. Any further work, like root cutting or a section repair, is priced separately once the camera has confirmed exactly what's needed, and you approve it before it starts.

Jetting blind can clear the immediate symptom while leaving the actual cause — a collapsed section, a root-filled joint, a genuine defect in an old clay run — completely unaddressed, which means the same blockage returns within months. A camera survey shows exactly what's inside the pipe and where, so the clearance method matches the real problem rather than guessing. It also means you see the footage yourself before agreeing to any repair beyond a standard clear.

It can, if your street sits below Teddington Lock — the point built in 1811 where the river stops being tidal — because a high spring tide can push back against the outfall on the lowest riverside roads in St Margarets, Eel Pie Island and East Teddington. Streets further from the river, or above the lock towards Bushy Park, don't face that particular exposure and block for the more ordinary reasons: scale, grease and root ingress. We check which category your address falls into as part of any survey.

Much of the original drainage in these areas is clay pipe laid well over a century ago, and root ingress from mature street trees and back gardens is the most common repeat cause we see in it — roots find their way into old joints and gradually restrict, then block, the flow. Scale build-up inside the pipe from decades of use compounds the problem in the same runs. A survey usually shows both issues present together in the oldest terraces, which is why a single jetting visit sometimes isn't the full fix.

Rodding pushes a flexible rod through the pipe to physically break up or push through a specific, usually single, blockage, and it's often enough for a stubborn clog nearer the property in a gully or internal waste run. Jetting uses high-pressure water to strip scale, grease and root growth from the full length of the pipe wall, which clears both the immediate blockage and the build-up that's likely to cause the next one. We use whichever the survey shows the drain actually needs, not the more expensive option by default.

A gurgling toilet, especially one that gurgles when another fixture drains nearby, usually means air is being pulled back through the system because something further down the run is restricting flow. It's often an early sign rather than a full blockage yet, which is exactly when a CCTV survey is most useful — catching the cause before it becomes a genuine backup. Left alone, it typically progresses to a slow drain and then a full block over weeks or months.

Yes — roots are drawn to the moisture and nutrients inside a drain run and will exploit even a hairline gap at a joint, particularly in the older clay pipework common across Twickenham, St Margarets and Teddington's mature, tree-lined streets. Once inside, a root grows and branches within the pipe, gradually reducing the flow until it blocks completely, often with debris caught on the root mass accelerating the process. A CCTV survey shows root ingress clearly, and jetting or root-cutting tools clear it without needing to dig up the garden in most cases.

A CCTV survey is usually arranged for the same day or the next, and if the drain is actively backing up rather than just slow, that's treated as a call under [emergency plumbing](/emergency-plumbing) instead and prioritised immediately. Most surveys take under an hour on site, with the footage and cause explained to you before any clearance work is quoted. Give your postcode when you call — TW1, TW2 or TW11 all help us plan the visit.

Rarely — most blockages, including root ingress and scale build-up, clear with jetting or targeted root-cutting through existing access points, and pipe relining can repair a cracked or collapsed section without excavation in many cases. Digging is genuinely needed only where a section has collapsed too badly to reline, which the CCTV survey will show clearly before any decision is made. We'll always explain why excavation is the only option in the rare cases it actually is, rather than defaulting to it.

A slow or gurgling drain is booked as a normal scheduled visit, but sewage actively backing up into the property, or a garden gully overflowing and rising, is treated as a genuine emergency and covered on the same 24-hour line as a burst pipe. See [emergency plumbing](/emergency-plumbing) for what else falls into that category. If you're not sure which one yours is, call anyway — the answer usually takes seconds to work out over the phone.

Yes — Eel Pie Island's homes are reached only by footbridge, so a jetting rig has to be run in on a trolley or carried across rather than parked outside, which adds time but not priority to the visit. The same applies to some of the narrower riverside lanes in St Margarets and East Teddington where a full jetting van can't get close. Tell us the address when you call so the technician arrives with the right equipment for the access.