Drainage Services Across Cardiff

Cardiff expanded from a small town to the world's biggest coal-exporting port within a single lifetime, and the Victorian and Edwardian terraces of Cathays, Roath, Canton, Grangetown and Splott were built at speed with the drainage standards of the day.

Those areas are served largely by combined sewers and shared rear-lane drains in salt-glazed clay. Cardiff sits on the flat coastal plain of the Severn levels, so gradients are shallow, flows are slow and silt, fat and wipes accumulate readily. The water table near the bay and along the Taff and Ely is high, and tide-locking at outfalls plus the Cardiff Bay barrage water level mean surface water cannot always discharge freely during heavy rain — surcharging systems and backing up into low-lying properties. Mature street trees on the wide Roath and Pontcanna avenues are a persistent source of root ingress. Large numbers of Victorian houses converted into student HMOs and flats put far more load on drains than they were designed for.

We CCTV survey to find the real defect, jet the run properly, and reline damaged clay from inside so pavements and rear lanes stay undisturbed.