Blocked Drains in Kingston: Causes, Costs and How We Actually Clear Them

A blocked drain rarely arrives without warning — usually a week of slow sinks or a gurgling toilet before it finally backs up.

Four causes account for most of what we see: fat and grease from kitchen waste solidifying in the pipe, wet wipes (nothing labelled “flushable” reliably breaks down), tree root ingress at older clay pipe joints, and — in some of Kingston's older properties — displaced or partially collapsed sections of original pipework.

For a slow sink: hot (not boiling) water with washing-up liquid, followed by a plunger, clears a surprising amount of soft grease. Bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar left for an hour is a safe follow-up. We'd steer you away from caustic drain crystals — they can damage older pipework, and if they don't clear the blockage, whoever opens the pipe next is working in a caustic environment.

If more than one fixture is affected at once — say a bath and a downstairs toilet together — the blockage is in a shared stack or underground run, and no amount of plunging will reach it.

We start with drain rods or high-pressure jetting depending on the pipe, then run a CCTV survey so you can actually see the cleared pipe and any underlying damage. Clearing a blockage without checking what caused it is how the same drain blocks again a few months later.

Since 2011, shared lateral drains and sewers serving more than one property are the water company's responsibility, not the homeowner's. Our CCTV survey tells you which applies, and if it's on Thames Water's side, we'll say so rather than charge you for something you're entitled to have done free.

Scrape plates into the bin rather than the sink, never pour cooking fat down the drain, fit a cheap sink strainer, and keep a bin in the bathroom so wipes never reach the pan.