Home › Blocked Drains
Slow sink, gurgling toilet, a gully that won't clear? Let's work through what's genuinely worth trying before I'm involved at all.
My drain's blocked — where do I start? A plunger on the affected fixture, or a mix of hot water, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar down a sluggish sink, genuinely clears a good few of these. If it's still not moving, or more than one fixture's affected, that's when I'd rather you rang 020 4577 2888 than kept pouring things down there.
A plunger, a drain snake, and patience — in that order. Skip the chemicals; they cause me more trouble than they solve.
Start simple. A sink or bath plunger, used firmly and repeatedly over the plughole with an inch or two of water already sitting in the basin, clears a surprising number of everyday clogs — hair, soap scum, the odd bit of food that got past the sieve. If that doesn't shift it, a flexible drain snake fed down the waste pipe can hook out what the plunger couldn't reach.
What I wouldn't reach for is a bottle of caustic drain cleaner. It can work on a simple grease blockage, but it's harsh on older pipework, and if it doesn't clear the block, I then have to work on a pipe full of chemical that can burn skin and eyes — genuinely not a great start to a call-out. A kettle of hot water followed by bicarbonate of soda and vinegar is a gentler home remedy that does something similar without the risk, and it's the one I'd actually recommend while you wait to see if it's needed.
Fat, wipes and food scraps cause the vast majority of the blockages I see. None of them belong down a sink or a toilet, ever.
Cooking fat and oil are the biggest one. They go down warm and liquid, then cool and set inside the pipe like candle wax, catching everything that flows past afterwards. Let it cool in a jar and bin it instead — it costs you nothing and saves the pipe entirely. "Flushable" wipes are the next worst offender; they don't break down the way toilet paper does, and I've pulled enough of them out of house drains to know the label is more marketing than promise. Coffee grounds, rice, pasta and eggshells all belong in the food bin, not the sink, however small the amount seems each time.
In a rural kitchen especially, where I often find the run to a septic tank rather than the mains, I'd add one more: go easy on strong bleach and harsh chemicals too, since they can upset the bacterial balance that makes a septic system work properly. A little common sense at the sink saves a lot of digging later.
Rough rule: your pipes, your problem — the shared and public bits are generally NI Water's. If the neighbours are backing up too, it's probably not your blockage.
Here's the boundary as I'd explain it to you standing at your gate. Drains inside your property boundary that serve only your home are your responsibility to sort; public sewers, and shared sewers beyond the boundary, generally fall to NI Water. So a blocked kitchen waste or one overflowing gully is your side of the line; a public manhole lifting in the street, sewage surfacing on the road, or several houses on your street backing up at once points to the public network — and that's reported to NI Water rather than paid for out of your own pocket.
The older streets near Armagh's cathedrals, where houses often share long drainage runs laid generations ago, are exactly where the "is it mine or ours?" question comes up most. A quick word with the neighbours before you call anyone can save you a call-out fee, and I'll always tell you plainly if the blockage genuinely isn't mine to fix.
A recurring blockage in the same place usually means something structural, not habit. Tree roots, a collapsed section, or a shared line that's undersized are the usual culprits.
If clearing it once solved it forever, I'd say job done and move on. When the same drain blocks again and again in the same spot, I start thinking about what's happening below ground rather than what went down the sink last week. Tree roots finding their way into an old clay pipe through a hairline joint are common in mature gardens, especially around the older parts of the city where the drainage predates most of the trees above it. A partially collapsed section of pipe, or a shared drain run that was never quite big enough for the houses feeding into it, can behave the same way — clearing today, blocking again in a month.
That's the point where a camera survey earns its keep, because it shows exactly what's going on instead of guessing from the surface. It costs more than a rod-and-go visit, but it stops you paying for the same temporary fix three times a year.
Broadly: the drains inside your boundary serving only your property are yours to sort; public sewers, and shared sewers beyond your boundary, are generally NI Water's territory. If several houses back up at once, or a public manhole is overflowing, that gets reported to NI Water. If it's just your own gully or WC, it's your side, and I'm the right call.
It's the drain telling you the blockage is further along than the sink you've been plunging. Lift the gully grid if you can and clear out any leaves or silt — that alone fixes more of these than you'd think. If the gully itself stays full or wastewater keeps rising, the run below ground needs rodding or jetting, and that's work for me, not a plunger.
I'd rather you didn't, honestly. They can work on a simple grease clog, but they're harsh on older pipework, dangerous to mix with anything else already down the drain, and if I then have to put my hands or tools into a pipe full of caustic chemical, that's a genuine safety problem for me. A plunger or a drain snake is a far kinder first move.
Yes, and it changes my thinking straight away. One slow sink is usually a local clog; every fixture backing up together, especially the lowest one in the house, points to a blockage in the main drain run or even the shared sewer beyond your boundary. Stop using water where you can and call me — this one isn't a job for a plunger.
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