Drain Detectives Reviews 68

Untrustable and unreliable; they took 125£ without even try to start the job, and then they tried to charge me further £1000 only to unblock a drain pipe

Unfortunately the engineer of this company when moving some belongings to access the work area, damaged another drain pipe. This was found after the callout but it is beyond doubt (visual witness) the engineer occured the damage by carelessly moving these belongings. This was reported to the manager, damage to a drain pipe evidenced (which necessitated emergency repairs), evidence of where belongings were intitially and where they had been left but the company refused to take responsibility. Disappointing to say the least.

Having mistakenly called a rival company first, who let me down for two days (starts with dyno), one of my colleagues mentioned she had used Drain Detectives and how good they were. I messaged at 7am, had a swift reply that confirmed an engineer would arrive between 10-12 and sure enough he turned up as promised, did a great job clearing the issue and tidied up afterwards. Highly recommended.

If I could give 100 stars I would. We had tried everything to unblock the drain from our downstairs loo - rods, an auger, buckets of water, plunger but nothing worked. In desperation I called one company who quoted £239 so I said no thank you. Next call was Drain Detectives: Nicole picked up the phone straight away and quoted £150 incl VAT for first hour. A young man turned up within half an hour, put a camera down, found blockage then used jet blaster and whoosh, our drain was clear. We are SO grateful! Highly recommend the Tunbridge Wells branch of this company.

Outstanding! Contacted DD and they came out within a couple of hours to clear drain . Investigated all drains and identified some issues contributing to blockages. Highly recommend. I’ve used them twice

I contacted Drain Detectives regards a blocked downpipe late Monday afternoon. Chris organised two Drain Detectives to come to London, SE3 on Tuesday. Blockage cleared and checked with video. No dramas, just a job well done.

I’d be very happy to recommend Drain Detectives going forward.

We received outstanding service from Drain Detectives. The engineer, Liam, was extremely helpful, thorough and took the time to explain everything clearly. He went above and beyond to locate hidden drain covers and provide a detailed report, which was invaluable to our project. Unmatched effort and professionalism. We will definitely be using them again.

Friendly, knowledgeable with good advice - thank you Olly. Price was reasonable and drain unblocked the day after. Good communication from office staff. Overall, pleased with the service I received.

Drain Detectives delivered a fast, thorough and very professional service. I would thoroughly recommend them.

Shirley took the initial call, asked questions, determined what was likely to be required and booked Dan at the agreed time.

Dan called in advance to confirm he was on track to arrive as agreed and when he did, he immediately set to work diagnosing and dealing with the issue;

1. He investigated a blockage and suspected root ingress issue (misdiagnosed by another company 2days beforehand).
2. He found there to be a large blockage in the foul drain system, this was caused by a blocked interceptor trap at the boundary manhole (the other company didn't even go to the boundary manhole!).
3. He cleared the blockage with high pressure water jetting and flushed the lines through. Flow tested
everything and checked with CCTV.
4. He found no root ingress at all, all drains were line tested and left running freely.

Note; the other company took 5 minutes to decide that we had 8m of damaged drains that had root ingress and couldn't do anything other than recommend the root ingress be drilled out and the pipes re-lined. They were not only looking in the incorrect drain (the impacted rain was 3m away, in line with the drain they were looking at and completely visible from the impacted drain) but if we'd followed their recommendation, we'd have spent 10 times more on lining a pipe that didn't need lining!

For us the Drain Detectives service was faultless and worth every penny....so we paid the invoice within 10 minutes of it arriving which was just 4 hours after they arrived.

Thanks Shirley, Dan and Drain Detectives.

Quick response and job well done
Thank you Reece

Professional, courteous and good at what they do from initial enquiry call to conclusion of the drain blockage. Competitive quote too. Dan H was the engineer who arrived to fix the drain. Positive can do attitude with energy and a professional efficient and calm manner. Well done and thank you. M

I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY HIGH ENOUGH. THEY ATTENDED A SEWER PROBLEM QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY WITH EXCELLENT EQUIPMENT IN A PROFESSIONAL FREINDLY MANOR
AND ENSURED ALL THE PROBLEMS WERE DEALT WITH.

Very dissatisfied with this company. They mislaid my address so did not turn up for the first appointment. Rescheduled and got a technician who phoned and _shouted_ at my wife because I was a few min late due to roadworks. Then proceeded to damage the drain trying to lever it open, despite there being usable handles. Did nothing because the blockage had gone, left after 10 min and then got charged over £100. Engineer proceeded to lie about the damage. Completely unacceptable behavior. Stay away from them.

Had a blockage and couldn’t work out where the issue was stemming from. Water build up in the toilets and shower. Called Drain Detectives and said they’d be out in just over 2 hours. True to their word, lad knocked the door, found the issue within 15 minutes. Fully working toilets, sinks and shower. Hallelujah.

I’ve used Drain Detectives before and I would hands down use them again. Appreciate everyone has good/bad experiences but honestly rate them highly.

From the lady booking me in on the phone, to the young lad who came to the house. Brilliant service. Special note to the lad (whose name I didn’t get) came out. Very professional, very polite and knowledgeable. Asset to your company.

We had an initial CCTV survey done prior to subsidence repair, which was promptly arranged and very detailed - our engineering company even commented on how in depth it was. On uncovering some issues that needed repair (and had probably contributed to the bigger issue) we went ahead and booked in. Hannah at head office was incredibly helpful answering a lot of questions and was happy to help schedule around the other work we were doing. The actual ground crew were brilliant - friendly, helpful and extremely hard working, they went above and beyond getting the work done and were a pleasure to have on site. Would be happy to use again and have already recommended to neighbours!

All good and very polite while quoting but the pricing is a joke - claimed it was expensive as "health and safety" required two men to dig up a small area of turf to a depth of about 1ft to replace an outside drain bend. Turned up on the day everything was booked in, with one guy who took absolutely no pride in his work, immediately "nickle and dimmed" with "plastic to plastic connection isnt included in the price" for what they were charging I expected them to "splash out" the 10 quid it would have cost for 1m of pipe! Somehow screwed the replacement downpipe in with a screw that was just a thread and no head so almost impossible to get out, fixed said downpipe with the writing/make face out, just absolute comedy for what they are charging!

Edit: Hi Stuart, why didn't your man just do the job correctly in the first place? He took the trouble to screw in the replacement drain pipe then snap off the screw head for reasons that escape me, really malicious to do stuff like that for no reason. I'll sort it myself or use another company if it comes to it, will never use Drain Detectives again though.

A joke of a company. In London they asks as to find a parking for them or pay their parking fine is they get one, as the closest streets near us had no spaces when they arrived. We asked them to provide the phone number of the driver to indicate where they can park, literally 3 minutes away from the house and they said was too far for them to park the car. This company is clearly no ready to deal with any job required to be in London, so my suggestion get someone serious and forget about them.

I called this company on a Saturday morning as we had an almost total blockage outside. The shower would not drain and the toilet could only be flushed with difficulty. Someone did attend and identified the problem that the sewer was blocked. He tried to unblock it only for about 15 or 20 minutes, then phoned someone and came back to tell me that as it was a shared drain, he could do nothing. He said to phone Southern Water but added that they were not good at coming out quickly. We are both in our seventies, my husband is disabled and counted as extremely vulnerable, and this man then dashed off leaving us with a virtually non working toilet, on a weekend. He showed no interest in how we were going to cope, and made no effort towards finding an effective solution. On a happier note, I did call Southern Water, who did everything right. They established our circumstances right from the initial phone call and someone came out on the Sunday morning. He made no fuss at all, identified and cleared the problem within 30 minutes and then did a first class clean up job. The useless call from Drain Detectives cost me over £200, so my advice to everyone is to call Southern Water first. They are effective.

Edit to add - Stuart, we knew the drain was blocked, it was completely obvious. What we needed was someone to unblock it, which is (or should be) your business. The man who came out to us did the bare minimum and then left us in the lurch. There was plenty more he could have done. If the Southern water engineer managed to clear it then Drain Detectives should have been able to.How on earth can you justify £200 for that?

Could you also please explain why you have waited almost 5 MONTHS before replying to these comments.

Don’t give this people work, it takes them 3 takes to complete a job and they want to charge you every time, please go direct to southern water recommendations only, the Drain Detective are very incompetent, and as soon as they get your money they don’t care anymore.

I had to use Drain Detectives as the purchasers of one of my houses had an initial survey done by them which identified a few fairly minor drainage issues. I needed the work done fairly quickly and they attended fairly promptly the following week. Lead chap spent an awful long time on his phone talking to the office about other jobs though. Another operative turned up late in the day and stayed for a few hours and another came the following day to help finish the job. I have no issues with what they did but boy do they know how to charge. An eyewateringly large invoice for what were fairly simple drain clearance, pipe inspections and gully repair jobs where material costs were minimal.