CCTV Drain Survey Andover | Buy With Your Eyes Open

Yes, you probably do. Not for every property, not always, but for most older Andover homes the answer is yes, and the cost of skipping one is almost always higher than the survey itself.

A standard conveyancing solicitor won't order one. A mortgage surveyor won't look underground. You'll get a valuation, maybe a HomeBuyer Report, and neither of them will tell you whether the clay drain running under that Victorian terrace in Charlton is cracked in three places and quietly filling with root ingress. That's not a criticism of solicitors or surveyors. It's just outside their scope.

So if no one else is checking, you need to decide whether you are.

What a CCTV drain survey actually is

A camera, mounted on a flexible rod or a self-propelled crawler, is fed into the drainage system through an access point, usually a manhole or an inspection chamber. It transmits live footage back to a screen. The engineer logs every defect, every joint, every root intrusion, every change in gradient. You get a written report with timestamped footage.

That's it. No digging, no disruption. A typical pre-purchase survey on a single domestic property takes between 45 minutes and two hours depending on the layout and access.

The footage doesn't lie. A root that's cracked a pipe joint shows up clearly. So does a collapsed section, a misaligned joint, a belly in the pipe where ground movement has left water pooling, or a build-up of fat and scale that's going to block within months of you moving in.

Why Andover properties are worth a closer look

Andover's housing stock is mixed in a way that creates real drainage variety. You've got pre-war terraces and semi-detached houses in the older parts of town, many still running on original clay pipe systems. Then you've got the post-war estates: Charlton, Knights Enham, Foxcotte. Some of those have been through multiple extensions and alterations over the decades, and drainage alterations done without a plan tend to produce surprises.

More recently built areas like Picket Twenty, Picket Piece, East Anton, and Saxon Fields come with newer UPVC systems, and those bring their own problems: joints that haven't been pressure-tested, connections that weren't inspected at sign-off, or builder drainage that was just about acceptable on the day and has shifted since.

And then there are the trees. Hampshire chalk and clay landscapes are well established in this area, and large trees near older pipes are one of the most consistent findings in our surveys. A mature tree on a neighbouring property in Walworth or Harroway doesn't need to be on your land to send roots into your drains.

The villages around Andover are worth a specific mention. Properties in Wherwell, St Mary Bourne, Thruxton, and Whitchurch often run on private drainage: septic tanks and cesspits rather than mains sewer. A CCTV survey alone won't assess a septic tank, but a drainage inspection will at least confirm what system you're connecting to and whether the condition of the pipework feeding it makes sense.

What it typically finds

Based on our pre-purchase surveys across SP10 and SP11, the most common findings are:

• Root intrusion, especially in properties with mature trees and clay pipe runs over fifteen years old
• Displaced or open joints, often caused by ground movement or frost cycles over time
• Partial collapses, usually in older clay runs beneath gardens or driveways
• Incorrect gradients, typically the result of DIY drainage work or unrecorded alterations
• Fat and scale build-up on shared lateral drains, particularly on terraced streets
• Broken or missing rodding eyes, which isn't a crisis but tells you maintenance has been minimal

None of those findings automatically means walk away. Most of them can be fixed without excavation using drain relining or patch repair. What matters is knowing before you sign, not after.

What you risk by skipping it

Here's where I'll be direct. A drain reline on a standard domestic run costs a fraction of what you'd spend on even a short section of excavation and pipe replacement. If you move in and then find the problem, you're paying full price with no negotiation lever.

Buy with a survey finding in hand, and you have options. You can ask the vendor to fix it before completion. You can negotiate the price down. You can walk away if it's bad enough. You can get a clear quote for the remedial work and factor it into your offer. Any of those is better than discovering a collapsed drain under your newly laid patio six months after you've moved in.

A straightforward pre-purchase CCTV drain survey is not expensive relative to any other professional service you commission in a property purchase. Compare it to the conveyancing fee, the mortgage broker's fee, or the HomeBuyer Report itself. It's a small line item against the size of the transaction, and it's the only one that looks at something a house literally cannot function without.

When you can probably skip it

New builds less than five years old with a drainage sign-off and warranty in place are lower risk, though not zero risk. We've published separately on what we find in Andover new build drainage, and it's not always clean.

If you're buying a flat in a managed block, the drain responsibility may sit with the management company rather than you personally. Worth checking before you pay for a survey on pipework that isn't legally yours to maintain.

If the property has had a pre-purchase drain survey done recently by a reputable company and you can verify the footage, that may be sufficient. Check the date and check whether the survey covered the full system.

Every other scenario, especially any property more than twenty years old in SP10 or SP11, is worth surveying.

One thing solicitors and estate agents often get wrong

You'll sometimes hear that drainage is covered by the property information form the vendor fills in. It isn't. Not really. The form asks whether the vendor is aware of any drainage problems. If they don't know there's a crack in a pipe under the garage, they'll answer no and they won't be lying. You need a camera, not a questionnaire.

If you're buying in Andover and want a pre-purchase CCTV drain survey arranged around your viewing or survey schedule, Drainsco covers all of the SP postcodes with engineers available 24/7. There's no call-out fee, and you'll get a clear price before we start. The written report and footage are yours to keep and use however you need during the purchase process.