Without a camera, a drainage engineer has to make educated guesses about where a problem is and how serious it is. Sometimes that means digging up a driveway at £500–£2,000 — only to find the problem is further along, or structural, or both. A CCTV survey costs £150–£250 and shows you exactly what's happening before anyone picks up a spade.
Tree roots enter cracked joints and grow inside the pipe, eventually causing blockages or collapse. Extremely common in Teesside's older streets.
Pipe sections crack or shift over time, allowing groundwater in and sewage out — which can affect foundations over years.
A pipe that has deformed or collapsed completely — often the real cause of persistent unexplained blockages.
Pipe sections that have shifted apart, creating a ledge where debris accumulates and blockages form.
Solid fat coating the pipe walls, drastically reducing bore. Common in domestic and commercial kitchen drains.
Pipes connected incorrectly by previous owners — important to identify before a property purchase.
A standard homebuyer survey doesn't check drains — they run underground and are invisible on the day. But drainage defects can cost thousands to fix. Our pre-purchase survey gives you documented evidence of any defect, which you can use to negotiate the price, require repairs before exchange, or walk away with confidence.
Real example: A buyer in Stockton-on-Tees used our CCTV report to negotiate £3,500 off the purchase price of a house with a collapsed drain. Survey cost: £195.
The CCTV survey before we bought our house found a root blockage the estate agent never mentioned. NorthFlow's report gave us real evidence for the negotiation — we got £3,500 off. Would never buy a house without one now.
Persistent blockage had been 'cleared' twice by another company. NorthFlow's CCTV showed a collapsed section 14 metres from the house. Targeted repair cost £680. Without the survey we'd have been digging the whole driveway up.
Full written report and video provided. Covering Hartlepool, Teesside and the full North East.
01429 802 500