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- Drainage across London, with plumbing alongside
Many of Acton’s Victorian and Edwardian houses have been converted into flats, and shared drainage in those buildings brings its own problems.
Much of Acton’s Victorian and Edwardian housing was built for single families, and a lot of it has since been converted into flats. In many conversions the drainage was adapted rather than replaced. The result is original clay pipework, sized for one household, now taking the discharge from several, with additional kitchens and bathrooms plumbed into stacks that were never designed to receive them.
That matters practically. A blockage in the stack affects every flat on it, the point where a newer bathroom was connected is often where a blockage forms, and clearing from the wrong access can send waste into the flat below. A CCTV drain survey shows exactly where a stack or shared drain is blocked. Newer blocks around North Acton are a different job: modern plastic and sometimes pumped drainage, where problems are more likely to be construction debris left in the pipes or sections that have sagged.
In a converted house the blockage is often below your flat, and clearing it needs the whole stack understood first.
Bathrooms added during conversion, connected into the stack at an awkward angle. They can catch debris and block repeatedly.
Cement, sand and plaster left in the drains of newer buildings can set hard and rarely shift with rods.
This page covers Acton (W3, W4) and the streets around it. 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 Acton, answered for the kind of property you find there.
Probably not. A drain shared by separate properties is generally Thames Water’s responsibility if it was connected to the public sewer by 1 July 2011, even where it runs under your garden. Shared runs are common in terraced streets, so it is worth establishing whether the blockage is on your private section or the shared section before you pay for anything.
New drainage blocks for different reasons to old drainage. Common causes are construction debris left in the lines at handover, sections of pipe that have sagged because the bedding was not compacted, and couplings that have pulled apart. If the building is still within its defects period it is worth raising with the developer as well as clearing it.
Call and speak to the engineer, 24 hours a day, including tonight.
