CCTV Drain Survey in Greenwich — See the Fault Before You Buy

A building survey in Greenwich will describe the roof, the chimney and the party walls. It will not put a camera in the drain, and in a borough where much of the housing is small Victorian terraced stock sitting on brick barrel laid more than a century ago, that is the part of the property most likely to cost you money later. A CCTV drain survey takes one to two hours on site, records the run, and gives you a written report you can use in the negotiation.

What A Survey Records That A Building Survey Does Not

The camera logs the pipe material, the diameter, the depth and the route, and marks every defect it passes: open or displaced joints, cracks, root ingress at the joints, encrustation on the invert, and any point where the run steps or has dropped away. A standard survey gives you an opinion about the structure above ground and, at best, a note that drainage was not inspected. That is the gap this survey fills.

The report also records where the private run ends and the public system begins. That single line of the report decides who is responsible for a defect and who has to carry out the work, which is worth more to a buyer than a general statement that the drains were old.

Three Generations Of Drain In One Estate

Rectory Field in Charlton is a good illustration of how drainage ages unevenly. The Rectory Field appraisal records that almost all the buildings are small Victorian terraced houses of yellow or mixed London stock under slate roofs, built in three phases: early Victorian before 1867, mid-Victorian after 1867, and late Victorian by the end of the 19th century. Three phases means three sets of house fittings, and a good number of later drains cut across or were connected into earlier ones.

Greenwich's conservation areas include West Greenwich, designated 1968, East Greenwich, designated 1992 and Blackheath, alongside Rectory Field, where the appraisal records that most houses are covered by an Article 4 Direction. That is a control on what you may change on the outside of a building. A drain survey changes nothing on the outside, which is why it causes no conservation issue at all and can be done at any point in a transaction.

Ground Conditions And Where Defects Start

The borough's surface water strategy records that a large part of Greenwich away from the Thames overlies London Clay, while land adjoining the Thames and other river corridors overlies Alluvium and River Terrace deposits. Ground movement over London Clay and settlement in the softer river deposits are both capable of opening a joint or letting a run dip, and the same strategy records that the Drain London project identified 12 Critical Drainage Areas in the borough, including one at Cutty Sark.

That last point is worth holding in mind when a defect appears close to a gully rather than under the house. Where surface water capacity is already constrained, a private run that discharges into that system can back up for reasons that have nothing to do with the private pipe, and a survey is the fastest way to establish which of the two you are dealing with.

Getting Access Onto The Street In SE10 And SE7

A survey needs a camera unit, a monitor and a place to work. If the run is reached from a manhole or an outside gully, the vehicle usually needs a bay for a few hours, and the application is the same one any works vehicle uses: the council charges £66.40 for each bay per day plus a non-refundable administration fee of £66.40, and the application must be in at least 10 working days before the suspension is needed, with a street plan required for business applications.

Working on the public highway in Greenwich requires a street works licence, also known as a Section 50 licence, under the Highways Act 1980 and the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, and starting street works without a licence is an offence. That applies to excavation rather than to a camera survey, but it is worth knowing before anyone quotes you for digging. Thames Water does carry out connection and main works in the borough under temporary parking restrictions made by the council, which is worth asking about if the defect turns out to sit on the public side.

Build-Over, The Report And The Price

If you are extending as well as moving in, the same survey can serve both purposes. Thames Water requires a build-over agreement for building works within 3 metres of a public sewer or within 1 metre of a public lateral drain, and planning permission does not grant permission to build over a sewer. A minor diversion may be possible where the sewer is 150mm or less in internal diameter and the diversion is 20m or less, which is a detail to establish early rather than after the design is fixed.

A domestic CCTV drain survey in Greenwich typically costs between £120 and £280. The price is fixed and agreed before the engineer arrives, there is no callout fee from the attending engineer, and any remedial work is quoted separately with no obligation attached to it. Our CCTV drain survey page covers the equipment and the report format in more detail.

Last Updated: 23 September 2026