Many homes in Esher, Cobham and Oxshott sit on large plots, and the drainage question is often distance: how far the pipe runs, and how much of it is yours.
On a suburban terrace the drain reaches the boundary in a few metres. On a large KT10 or KT22 plot it can run much further, often under a driveway, past outbuildings and beneath mature planting, before it gets anywhere near a public sewer. That length changes everything practically. Rods cannot reach most of it, access points are far apart and frequently buried, and a fault thirty or forty metres in is not something to locate by guesswork. Jetting and a camera survey often do the work here that rods do elsewhere.
The mature trees that make these areas attractive are also a common cause of damage, because their roots sit over long clay runs and find their way into open joints. On the more rural fringes some properties are not on the public sewer at all but on septic tanks or package treatment plants, which fail in entirely different ways and are the owner’s responsibility in full, with no water company to fall back on.
A lot of pipe before the boundary. Where rods cannot reach, jetting and a camera can.
Established trees over clay runs. Cutting roots restores flow but leaves the joint open for next time.
Some properties are on septic tanks or treatment plants rather than the sewer, and the owner carries the whole responsibility.
This page covers Esher, Cobham and Oxshott (KT10, KT11, KT22). If your postcode is on the edge of this area, call and ask rather than assuming.
Call and speak to the engineer. 24 hours a day, including tonight.
Sinks, toilets, gullies and main drains cleared, with the cause identified rather than guessed.
Overflowing gullies and blocked manholes or inspection chambers, cleared and explained.
Toilets that will not flush, or that fill up and will not drain, cleared without damaging the pan or the soil pipe.
Kitchen sinks and waste pipes blocked with grease, cleared properly rather than just poked through.
Standing water in the bath or shower tray, and slow bathroom basins, cleared at the cause.
Sewage backing up, drains overflowing, or a home or business you cannot use until it is fixed. Phone answered 24/7.
Scours grease, silt, scale and roots off the pipe wall, rather than just making a hole through the blockage.
See the inside of the pipe: recurring blockages, pre-purchase checks, insurance and subsidence claims.
Cracked joints, root damage and collapsed sections, repaired without digging where the pipe allows.
Restaurants, pubs, offices, landlords and managing agents: planned maintenance and out-of-hours call-outs.
Leaks, taps, traps, toilet cisterns and waste pipes: the plumbing that often comes with a drainage job.
Common questions about drainage in Esher, answered for the kind of property you find there.
Often somewhere rods cannot reach. On plots this size the useful approach is a camera to locate the fault precisely and jetting to clear it, rather than working blind from an access point that may be nowhere near the problem. It also avoids lifting a driveway on the strength of a guess.
Very. There is no water company involved, so responsibility for the whole system is yours, and the failure modes are different: a full or unserviced tank, a blocked outlet, or a soakaway that has stopped accepting water. Tell us when you call, because the diagnosis and the work are not the same as a mains-connected property.
Call and speak to the engineer, 24 hours a day, including tonight.