The customer was charged £167 + VAT for unblocking a drain and providing a CCTV survey over 2 visits. The CCTV undertaken showed that the pipe was infested with roots. The survey only extended a short distance as the roots prevented us from surveying any further. The customer was advised that this was most likely the cause of the reoccurring problems and was given a fixed price to undertake a localised excavation and a localised repair. We would also undertake a CCTV survey from the excavation point to ensure the remainder of the pipe was sound.

The circumstances relating to the pipe beyond that surveyed were irrelevant although I understand an insurance affiliated contractor has attended the site since and found other issues and the termination point. We were given no indication of how long this work took to undertake. Although we do not dispute that the drains may run in an opposite direction, this has no bearing on the underlying problem and we would have determined the entire direction of the drain either at the time of the localised excavation or if we had spent additional time on site during our CCTV survey and the customer would have been charged accordingly.