Blocked Drains and Drainage Services in Ashford

Drainage for an Ashford That Keeps Growing

Ashford is a town of two halves underground. Close to the centre, rows of Victorian terraces still drain through the clay pipes they were built with. Further out, large estates such as Park Farm, Repton Park and Singleton have gone up in more recent decades, laid with plastic pipework, modern inspection chambers and soakaways. Both kinds of system block, but rarely for the same reasons, and knowing the difference saves time on the day.

The town also sits where the Great Stour and the East Stour meet, with Ashford International on the High Speed 1 line and the M20 running along its edge. Rivers, rail and road have shaped where people live, and they shape the drainage too. Low ground near the water takes the brunt of heavy rain, while new streets keep spreading out towards the surrounding villages.

Vortex Plumbing & Drainage Ltd clears and repairs drains for Ashford homeowners, landlords and businesses. Below we explain what usually goes wrong in each part of town and what we do about it.

Blocked Drains in Ashford

Most blocked drains in Ashford start with something small. Wet wipes, kitchen fat, hair and food scraps gather at a bend or a joint until the water has nowhere left to go. The warning signs are a gurgle from the sink, a toilet that rises before it empties, or a smell from the gully outside the back door.

On the older terraces, waste often catches where a clay joint has shifted and left a small lip inside the pipe. On the newer estates the pipes are smooth, but a run with only a gentle fall drains slowly, and rubble left in a pipe during building can still cause trouble years later.

How we clear a blocked drain

We start at the nearest inspection chamber, work out which side the blockage lies and clear it with rods or a water jet, depending on what we find. Once the water is moving we check that the chamber empties properly and tell you what caused the problem, so you know whether it is likely to return.

Blocked toilets and unblocking baths in Ashford

A toilet, bath or basin that will not drain is often the first sign of a wider blockage further down. We clear the fitting itself, then follow the pipe so the problem is not simply pushed along to the next bend. Read more about our blocked toilet service.

Clearing a blocked drain at an Ashford home

CCTV drain survey camera used on Ashford drains

Drain Repairs and CCTV Drain Surveys in Ashford

Age changes what a drain needs. The clay pipes under the older streets near the centre were laid in short lengths with rigid joints. Over many years, ground movement and thirsty roots work those joints open, and a crack that starts small can let soil in or water out.

Plastic systems on the newer estates rarely crack in the same way. They can sag where the ground settled after building, though, and a joint can pull apart under a driveway. A sagging pipe holds standing water, and standing water is where waste settles and builds.

What a CCTV drain survey shows

A camera on a flexible rod travels through the pipe and records everything it passes, including cracks, roots, displaced joints, sags and blockages, with a distance reading so each fault can be found from the surface. You receive the footage with a written summary and plain advice. Find out more about our CCTV drain surveys.

Putting the fault right

Where a pipe is cracked or a joint has opened, a no dig lining can often seal it from the inside without lifting a patio or lawn. Where a section has collapsed, it may need digging out and replacing. Either way, we talk you through the options before any work begins.

Drain Jetting and Drain Cleaning in Ashford

Some drains are not blocked so much as narrowed. Grease from a kitchen, limescale from hard Kent water and silt washed in from a yard slowly coat the inside of a pipe until it runs sluggishly all the time. Rodding pushes a hole through that kind of deposit but leaves most of it clinging to the walls.

High pressure water jetting scours the pipe clean along its whole length. It is the method we use for drain cleaning on greasy kitchen runs, silted yard gullies and drains where roots have been cut back, and it works from an inspection chamber, so there is no digging. You can read more on our high pressure jetting page.

For landlords and businesses whose drains see heavy use, a jetting visit at regular intervals helps stop the same problem returning every few months.

Surface water drainage and gullies at an Ashford property

Surface Water, Soakaways and the Two Rivers

Heavy rain tests drainage in Ashford more than almost anything else. Where the Great Stour and the East Stour come together, low lying ground can stay wet for days after a storm, and garden drains and yard gullies have to cope with water arriving faster than usual.

On many newer estates, rainwater from roofs and driveways runs to a soakaway rather than a sewer. A soakaway works well while the ground around it can carry water away, but silt washed in over the years gradually fills the spaces it relies on. Puddles that linger over a soakaway, or a downpipe that overflows at the bottom, are signs worth checking.

We can clear the pipes that feed a soakaway, check its chamber and the gullies around the house, and look at the run on camera if water keeps backing up.

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Commercial Drainage and Emergency Drainage in Ashford

Shops, cafes, offices and rented homes in Ashford cannot sit with a blocked drain for long. We clear kitchen runs, customer toilets and yard gullies for commercial premises and arrange planned jetting where grease is a regular problem. See our commercial drainage page for more.

When water is rising out of a manhole or a toilet will not stop overflowing, our emergency call out service runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We work across Kennington, Willesborough and the TN23 and TN24 postcodes, and in nearby Hythe and Folkestone.

Ashford Drainage Questions

Answers to the drainage questions that come up most around Ashford.

Many do. On a lot of newer homes, rainwater from roofs and paved areas drains to a soakaway or to a surface water system serving the estate, rather than to the foul sewer. If you are not sure where your rainwater goes, lifting the inspection covers while a downpipe runs usually shows the route, and we can trace it for you if not.

It depends on whether the pipes have been adopted. In general, once adopted, pipes serving more than one home are looked after by the local water company, while the pipe serving only your home within your boundary is yours. On a new estate, some sections may still sit with the developer or a management company until adoption is finished. Your water company or management company can confirm which applies to your street.

It is worth considering for any purchase, and particularly for an older terrace near the town centre. A standard home survey usually looks only at what can be seen from the surface, while a CCTV drain survey shows the inside of the pipes. The footage gives you something definite to raise with your solicitor or the seller before you commit.

In very heavy rain, gullies, soakaways and garden drains can simply be overwhelmed, particularly on low ground near the rivers. If the water drains away within a few hours, the system may just have been at full stretch. If it lingers, or returns after light rain, there may be a blockage, a silted soakaway or a damaged pipe, and a camera survey will show which.

Yes. We clear blockages in rented homes and explain what caused them, which helps when deciding whether a problem came from the way a drain was used or from the pipe itself. If a fault keeps returning, a CCTV survey gives you a clear record of the condition of the pipe.