St Albans
Blocked, burst or leaking in St Albans?
Blocked drains, burst pipes and leaks in St Albans, from the village circle to St Albans East, passed to a licensed plumber day and night.
Plumbing in St Albans
A postwar boom and two street patterns
St Albans grew fast after the war, from about 900 to 7000 people, much of it in that first postwar decade. Houses from the boom often still drain through their first earthenware sewers, now around seventy years in the ground, so roots at cracked joints are the usual suspect when a line blocks.
The layout gives a clue to the pipe. A rectangular grid wraps the old village to the north, east and south, and there are curvilinear 1970s subdivisions to the west. The grid is more likely to have earthenware, while the curving estates may have early PVC or later clay, which a camera confirms.
Jobs in St Albans
Grid streets, curving estates and compact lots
Blocked drains
Rooted earthenware in the postwar grid around the old village.
CCTV drain inspection
A camera to tell early PVC from clay in the curving western estates.
Pipe relining
Lining a sewer when a compact lot leaves nowhere to dig.
What it costs: hot water replacement cost, gutter replacement cost, toilet installation cost
St Albans questions
The village circle, small lots and older sewers
Does the heritage village plan hold up drain work?
Rarely on the house side. The concentric circular streets at the heart of the suburb were listed with the street pattern as the significant element, and only two buildings contribute. A house drain or pipework job is unlikely to need heritage approval, but digging in the road reserve can draw closer council scrutiny.
What makes drain access hard east of the railway?
The Urban Land Authority laid out a high density energy efficient housing subdivision in St Albans East. Lots there are small, with sewer and stormwater lines close to the boundaries or in shared easements, so who owns the easement and how a machine gets in are checked before the job starts.
Why does an old postwar drain keep blocking?
On a house from the postwar boom, the joints of the original clay line open with age and let roots in. Clearing alone buys time; filming the line shows whether it needs relining or a new section.
