CALL 08000 654 111We all know about the sensational aspects of CCTV exposure, from bad behaviour to criminal activity and beyond. But what might a CCTV drain survey uncover about you, should you need one?
What Goes Down the Drain But Shouldn’t?
The thing about drain is, they’re so convenient. You can flush any number of things down the sink or toilet and away they go, out of sight, out of mind.
Or are they?
Drains are not meant to accommodate all and every kind of waste. Many items, if put down the drains, will simply clog them up, either through time, or almost immediately, depending on what they are.
An obvious culprit is cooking fat. If you pour grease from food straight down the drain it doesn’t simply flow away, even if you run the tap. It gradually coats the inside of your drains, narrowing them and making them less efficient. Eventually, if you’re unlucky, this can congeal into a fatberg, which is as unpleasant as it sounds, with potentially dire consequences for your drainage.
Also, food waste and scraps can build up in drains, particularly food that expands with water, such as pasta. Coffee grounds are another cause of blocked kitchen drains.
Hair is another one of the usual suspects. We can’t do much about hair, it’s just something we’ve got, and it sheds in the shower and bath and end up going
down into the drain. Enough hair will clog a drain if left untreated (the drain, not the hair).
Cotton balls, swabs and pads frequently head drainwards. These items are not designed to be disposable in this way, and will eventually clog up the drains if you insist on flushing them down the loo.
There are plenty of disposable products that are just not always as disposable down the drain, such as baby wipes. It’s also worth noting that the performance of disposable products may be dependent on the actual state of your drains in the first place. So check before you flush. This is true of that particularly thick, luxurious toilet paper that appears so tempting in commercials and on the supermarket shelf.
A number of what supermarkets refer to as “unexpected items” also find their way down drains, such as items of clothing, packaging and children’s toys.
A final health warning: cigarette butts can also block drains.
CCTV reveals all
Whatever is blocking your drain, a CCTV drain survey is one way of detecting the cause of the problem.
A word of warning, however: whereas CCTV is invaluable in finding things out, and will certainly come in handy in detecting drainage problems, it may reveal some of your household habits, when the various things that ended up down your drains are captured on camera.
Don’t be put off though: we’re here to help, and anyway, you get to keep your own DVD footage of the CCTV drain survey, if only to remind you not to put the same things down the drain again.