Who are the drains specialists in St Helens?

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Who are the drains specialists in St Helens?

Drain repair specialists in St Helens

There is no problem quite like a blocked or damaged drain. Even the best case scenario involves inconvenience and annoyance. At worst you could find yourself facing significant property damage and some very serious expense. Fortunately, when it comes to drains St Helens householders can call us.

Mersey Rod is a company that has specialised in the drains of St Helens for many years. If it can happen to a drain, then we have seen it and fixed it.

One of the most common issues we have dealt with over the years is blockages caused by people flushing things that should have been flushed. Nappies are a particularly common example of this. They cause problems because they are designed to lock liquid into absorbent gels which get larger as they sequester the moisture. When used for their intended purpose this is obviously very much a good thing. Once they get into a drainage system however they are in effect permanently exposed to a limitless water source.

The gels continue to function as designed, absorbing as much liquid as they can which causes them to expand into gooey gelatinous globs. These can cause blockages by themselves, but they also act as a sort of binding agent that which holds other solids together and so form substantial “clots” which restrict the free flow of fluids through the drainage system.

As leading drain repair specialists in St Helens we should probably also discuss fats. We conduct a great number of drain inspections in St Helens and the surrounding area and we often find that the insides of pipes have become crusted with a rock hard coating of cooking fats. Fats which solidify at room temperature, such as butter and lard are the biggest problem but even liquid vegetable fats like olive oil become solid at the low temperatures found in drainage systems. Over time these fat deposits build up, making pipes increasingly narrow until they become completely blocked.

Just as with products containing absorbent gels, this issue then compounds itself because these hard waxy build-ups will also bind other items of debris together to form so-called “fatbergs”. These can grow to

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impressive but troublesome proportions and can be a real problem to extract. They rarely cause of serious damage but they are still a problem because a blocked drain is a blocked drain. St Helens households are well advised to follow our lead as a drain repair specialist and avoid the issue by simply not putting fat down the sink in the first place.

Blocked drain in St Helens

A significant cause of damage to drains that is more difficult to avoid than cooking oil or nappies is tree roots. Over time roots can cause a surprising amount of damage to a drainage system. The issue is that many species of tree possess powerful root systems which reach out for considerable distances from the trunk in search of water and nutrition. When they find a drain they find both of these things and latch on.

Checking drainage systems for tree root damage is one of the most common reasons we have for undertaking a CCTV drain survey. People think of St Helens as an urban area but we are blessed with many green and wooded spaces. But however much we love those green spaces you cannot have trees without roots, and roots can lead to damaged drains.

Finding such damage without being able to work CCTV equipment through a drainage system pinpoint the location of the problem involves a great deal of guesswork and even more expensive digging. There really is no other way to be sure which parts of the system has been affected and clearly if you have not found the damage you cannot do the required drain repairs. St Helens deserves the best, and delivering the best drain care is our mission in life. Generally speaking if you take care of your drains your drains will take care of you. If they do ever let you down, then call us because we are dedicated specialists repairing the drains of St Helens.