24/7 emergency callout · Auckland-wide
Anyone can push a blockage through. We clear the drain, put a camera down the line, and tell you whether you have a one-off blockage or a pipe that is going to keep doing this — before you spend money on the wrong fix.
Start here
In Auckland, everything on your side of the point of supply is the property owner’s responsibility — that is the private wastewater lateral running from your fixtures out to the connection with the public network. The public wastewater main is Watercare’s, and they clear blockages on it at no charge to you. Auckland Council’s Healthy Waters looks after the public stormwater network, which is a separate system with a separate owner.
It is worth thirty seconds of thought, because it decides who pays. Most household blockages do turn out to be on the private lateral. But if wastewater is surfacing in the street as well as your yard, or your neighbours have the same problem on the same day, the main is the more likely culprit — and Watercare explicitly ask you to call them before you call a plumber when that is the case. Their 24/7 faults line is (09) 442 2222, option 1.
We will tell you honestly which side of the line your problem is on. If it is Watercare’s, we say so and you pay us nothing — that is a much better outcome for you than us clearing a private drain that was never the problem.
| What | Whose |
|---|---|
| Pipes inside the house | Yours |
| Gully trap outside | Yours |
| Private lateral to the boundary | Yours |
| Shared private drain (multiple homes) | Shared between owners |
| Public wastewater main | Watercare |
| Public stormwater pipes & catchpits | Auckland Council |
| Your downpipes & private stormwater | Yours |
Sources: Watercare and Auckland Council. Where a shared private drain serves several properties, the owners share responsibility for it — a common situation in Auckland cross-lease and infill housing.
What we do
From a kitchen sink that will not drain to a collapsed lateral under a driveway. Everything below is done by drainage tradespeople, not general handymen.
Slow, gurgling, backed-up or overflowing — we clear it and tell you what caused it, so you know whether it will come back.
Learn more →A camera down the line shows exactly what is there and how far along. You see the footage, not just our word for it.
Learn more →High-pressure water scours the pipe wall clean of fat, sludge and fine roots — not just punching a hole through the middle.
Learn more →When the pipe itself is the problem, we fix it — excavated repair, or a relined section without digging your driveway up.
Learn more →Wastewater surfacing, a toilet that will not clear, a gully overflowing in the rain. 24 hours, 7 days, across Auckland.
Learn more →Root cutting to clear the line now, plus a camera check to find the crack or joint the roots came in through.
Learn more →Local conditions
Drainage problems are not random. In Auckland they follow the age of the pipe, the trees on the street and the ground the pipe sits in — which is why the same suburbs throw up the same faults again and again.
Villas and bungalows across Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Mt Eden, Epsom, Remuera and Devonport were drained with short lengths of glazed earthenware or concrete pipe, joined every 600mm or so and sealed with mortar. Those joints are the weak point. Once one opens up, roots and silt have a way in.
Post-war and early suburban housing brought concrete and asbestos-cement drainage. Asbestos-cement pipe is still in the ground in plenty of Auckland properties. It is safe while undisturbed, but it is brittle and it changes how a repair has to be handled — which is worth knowing before anyone starts digging.
Modern uPVC drainage uses long runs and rubber-ring joints, so root intrusion is far less common. When newer drains block it is usually the contents rather than the pipe: fat and food waste, wet wipes, or a fall that was laid too flat and now holds water.
Liquidambar, plane, willow and poplar are heavy water-seekers and are common in Auckland’s older streets. Roots do not usually break sound pipe — they find the moisture already escaping from a failing joint and grow to it. That is why cutting roots without finding the entry point buys you a year or two, not a solution.
Much of Auckland sits on clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. Over decades that movement pulls jointed pipe out of line, creating steps and sags where water and solids sit. It is a slow failure, and it shows up as a drain that gradually starts blocking more often each winter.
Parts of central Auckland have historically carried wastewater and stormwater in combined lines, which is why heavy rain used to trigger overflows. Watercare’s Central Interceptor tunnel was built to reduce exactly that. On a private property, the equivalent problem is stormwater illegally connected into the wastewater line — something a camera survey will find.
How a job runs
No mystery, and no invoice that arrives bigger than the conversation.
Which fixtures, whether the outside gully is overflowing, how long it has been happening. That alone narrows the likely cause a long way.
You get a realistic range on the phone and a firm price on site before anything starts. If what we find changes the job, we stop and re-quote.
Rods, a machine or the jetter, depending on the blockage. Then, where it matters, a camera down the line to see what caused it.
Plain-language explanation, footage where we ran a camera, and an honest view on whether this needs repairing or just watching.
Where we work
We are a mobile service — the van comes to the property. Pick your suburb for local detail on what tends to go wrong there.
Why us
Clearing a drain and driving away is the easy version of this job. If your drain has blocked before, we want to know why, and we will put a camera down to find out rather than guessing.
Camera footage and stills are yours to keep. That matters if you are a landlord justifying a repair, a buyer deciding on a property, or an owner getting a second quote.
Not every fault found on camera needs fixing now. A minor root at a joint on a drain that has never blocked is worth monitoring, not excavating. We will say so.
If the fault is on the public main, that is Watercare’s to repair at no cost to you, and we will point you there instead of clearing a private drain that was never blocked.
You approve a number before anyone starts. If the scope changes because of what is in the ground, we stop, show you and re-quote.
Drain repair and alteration is restricted work under New Zealand law. It is done or supervised by licensed people, and you are welcome to ask for the licence card and check it on the PGDB register.
Questions
It depends which side of the point of supply the blockage is on. Everything on your side — the private wastewater lateral running from your fixtures out to the connection with the public network — is the property owner’s to maintain and pay for. The public wastewater main itself is Watercare’s, and they attend blockages on it at no cost to you.
In practice the great majority of household blockages are on the private lateral. But if wastewater is also surfacing in the street, or several neighbours have the same problem at once, that points to the public main. Watercare specifically ask you to call them before you call a plumber in that situation. Their 24/7 faults line is (09) 442 2222, option 1. Their guide to who is responsible for which pipes sets the boundary out with diagrams.
Slow-draining sinks, showers or baths; a gurgling sound from a fixture when another one drains; a toilet whose water level rises before it clears; a smell of sewage outside near the gully trap; and water pooling around the outside gully. If more than one fixture is affected at the same time, the blockage is usually in the shared line outside the house rather than under a single basin.
A drain that blocks repeatedly at the same point almost always has a physical cause in the pipe: tree roots that have entered through a cracked or open joint, a section that has dropped and now holds water, a partial collapse, or a build-up of fat and sludge on a rough or damaged pipe wall. Clearing it treats the symptom. A CCTV drain survey shows the cause, and is the only way to decide honestly between ongoing clearing and a one-off repair.
Most straightforward residential blockages cleared from an accessible outside gully trap fall in the low hundreds of dollars. Jobs needing hydro-jetting, or a camera survey to find the cause, cost more; excavated repairs and relining are a different order again. Access, depth, pipe condition and the equipment required drive the number more than the suburb does. Our Auckland drain cost guide sets out realistic ranges, and we give you a price before starting work rather than after.
Not to clear one. The Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board allows a homeowner to clear a blocked drain, provided it does not involve altering or repairing the inspection pipe or the ventilation pipe. What you cannot legally do yourself is install, alter or repair a drain — that is restricted work and must be carried out or supervised by a licensed person. You are entitled to ask to see a licence card and to check it on the public register.
Roots rarely break sound, sealed pipe. What they do is find moisture escaping from a joint or a hairline crack that is already there, and grow towards it. Once fine roots are inside they thicken, catch paper and fat, and turn a minor defect into a full blockage. That is why root removal without finding the entry point is temporary: the roots come back through the same gap, usually within a year or two.
No, and mixing them up is behind a lot of misdirected phone calls. Wastewater is what leaves your toilets, sinks and showers, and in Auckland the public wastewater network is run by Watercare. Stormwater is rain running off roofs and paving, and the public stormwater network is run by Auckland Council’s Healthy Waters department. They are separate systems with separate owners. Private pipes on your property, of either kind, are yours.
Yes. Office hours are Monday to Friday 7am–6pm and Saturday 8am–4pm, and emergency drainage callout runs 24 hours, 7 days, including public holidays. An overflowing drain at 11pm is a genuine emergency and we treat it as one.
Tell us what you are seeing, hearing or smelling. We will tell you what it probably is, what it takes to fix, and what that should cost — before anyone gets in a van.