CCTV Drain Survey Cost: The Complete 2026 UK Price Guide

The Quick Answer

A CCTV drain survey costs £150 to £350 for a standard domestic property in the UK in 2026. A homebuyer's drain survey, which comes with a fuller written report, typically runs £200 to £400. In London, expect £180 to £600 because access, parking and labour all cost more.

Commercial properties, multiple drain runs, or surveys that need a manhole lifting in the public highway push the figure to £400 to £900.

Those are the numbers. The rest of this guide is the part that actually saves you money: what makes one quote £150 and another £500, what you should receive at the end of it, and why a "free" drain survey is often the most expensive one you can have.

What Is a CCTV Drainage Survey?

A CCTV drainage survey is an inspection of your underground drains using a camera on a flexible rod or a self-propelled crawler unit. The camera is fed into the drain through an inspection chamber, and it films the inside of the pipe as it travels along the run.

The point of it is to stop guessing. Without a camera, diagnosing a drain problem means digging holes until you find the fault. With one, you see the defect, you know how far along the run it sits, you know how deep it is, and you can price the repair properly before a single spade goes in the ground.

A survey will show you:

• Cracks, fractures and collapses in the pipe
• Displaced or open joints, which is how most root ingress starts
• Root ingress from nearby trees
• Blockages and silting, and whether they are a symptom or the cause
• Misconnections, where a foul pipe has been wrongly plumbed into a surface water drain
• Rat runs and rodent access points
• The route and depth of the drain, which matters enormously if you are planning an extension

CCTV Drain Survey Cost in 2026: The Full Breakdown

Survey type	Typical UK cost	Typical London cost
Basic domestic survey (one or two runs)	£150 - £350	£180 - £450
Homebuyer / pre-purchase survey with full report	£200 - £400	£280 - £600
Multiple runs or a larger property	£350 - £550	£400 - £700
Commercial or multi-occupancy	£400 - £900	£500 - £1,200
Survey requiring a highway manhole lift	Add £150 - £400	Add £250 - £600
Survey combined with a jetting clear	Add £100 - £250	Add £150 - £350

These are guide prices for 2026. Any contractor quoting a firm price over the phone without asking about access has not thought about your job.

What Actually Drives the Price

Six things move the number, and only one of them is the camera.

Access to a chamber. The camera has to get into the drain. If you have an open inspection chamber in the garden, that is a five minute job. If your only chamber is under a patio, a decked area, or a kitchen extension, someone has to find it and get to it, and that is labour.

The number of runs. A survey of one run from the house to the boundary is not the same job as surveying the foul run, the surface water run, and the shared lateral. Most quotes assume one or two runs. Confirm what you are getting.

The length and depth of the pipe. Longer runs take longer. Deep runs may need a crawler unit rather than a push rod, and crawler kit costs more to run.

Whether the drain needs clearing first. A camera cannot see through a blockage or standing water. If the run is full, it has to be jetted clear before the survey is meaningful. Some firms quote for the survey and then add the jetting on the day, which is how a £180 quote becomes £400.

Whether a manhole sits in the public highway. If the chamber that gives access is in the road or the footway, the work needs traffic management, and in many cases a permit from the local authority. That is a different job with a different price.

Location. London and the South East run above the national average. Labour costs more, parking is a genuine expense in a controlled parking zone, and a van cannot always get near the property.

The Homebuyer's Drain Survey

If you are buying a house, this is the version you want, and it is worth the extra hundred pounds.

A standard RICS survey does not inspect your drains. A homebuyer's drain survey does, and it produces a written report you can put in front of a seller or a solicitor. On any property built before about 1960, and especially on Victorian and Edwardian housing with original salt-glazed clay pipework, it is one of the cheapest pieces of insurance you can buy.

The arithmetic is simple. A drain repair runs into the thousands. A collapsed run under a rear extension can run well past that. Against those numbers, a few hundred pounds spent before you exchange either buys you peace of mind or buys you a costed defect you can negotiate off the asking price. Either outcome is a good one.

The other thing it does is set the baseline. If a drain fails eighteen months after you move in, a dated pre-purchase survey is the difference between an insurance claim and an argument.

What You Should Receive: The Report Matters More Than the Camera

This is where most people get short-changed, and almost nobody checks.

A proper CCTV drainage survey report should include:

• The video footage, supplied to you, not just watched on a screen on the day
• A written report identifying every defect found
• A schematic plan of the drain runs, showing where the pipes go and where each defect sits along them
• Defects coded to the WRc Manual of Sewer Condition Classification (MSCC), which is the industry standard, rather than described in a contractor's own words
• A condition grade for each run
• A costed recommendation, so you know what needs doing now, what can wait, and what is fine

If a survey gives you a phone video and a verbal "yeah, it's not great, we'll need to dig it up", you have not had a survey. You have had a sales visit.

Ask before you book: "Do I get the footage, a plan of the runs, and MSCC-coded defects?" If the answer is vague, phone someone else. That one question filters out most of the cowboys.

Why a Free Drain Survey Is Rarely Free

Plenty of firms advertise a free CCTV drain survey. It sounds generous. Consider what it actually is.

The survey costs the contractor a couple of hours and a van. If they are giving it away, they are recovering that cost somewhere, and the only place left is the repair quote. A free survey is a sales appointment for a repair that has already been decided on. The incentive of the person holding the camera is to find something expensive.

An independently paid-for survey has the opposite incentive. You are paying for a diagnosis, so the diagnosis is the product. If the drain is fine, the honest answer is that the drain is fine, and you have spent £200 to find that out and sleep properly.

This is not to say every free survey is a scam. It is to say you should understand what you are being sold, and that £200 spent on an impartial diagnosis is usually cheaper than a free one.

Who Pays: You, or the Water Company?

This catches people out constantly, and it can be the difference between a £3,000 bill and nothing at all.

Since October 2011, most shared drains and sewers transferred to the water companies. So:

• The drain inside your boundary that serves only your property is yours. You pay.
• A shared lateral drain, or any pipe that takes flow from a neighbour's property, is the water company's. They pay.
• The public sewer is the water company's. They pay.

In practice: if the pipe only serves your house and has not left your boundary, it is your problem. Once it takes a neighbour's flow, or it has crossed the boundary, it is almost certainly Anglian Water's in Norfolk, or Thames Water's in London.

A CCTV survey is what establishes which side of that line your defect falls on. That alone is often worth the cost of the survey, because it decides who picks up the repair bill. Before you accept a quote to dig up your garden, find out whose pipe you are digging up.

Do You Have Rats? A Survey Will Tell You

If you have rats in the garden, in the cavity walls or under the floor, the drain is the first place to look. Rats live in sewers. They get into a property through a broken drain, an open joint, or a redundant pipe that was capped badly or never capped at all.

Pest control will kill the rats you have. It will not stop the next lot, because it does not fix the hole they came through. A CCTV survey finds the entry point, and a drain repair closes it permanently. If you are on your third round of poison, you are treating the symptom.

When You Actually Need a CCTV Drain Survey

• You are buying a property, particularly anything Victorian, Edwardian or pre-war
• The drain keeps blocking. Once is a blockage. Three times in a year is a defect.
• You have rats and nobody can tell you where they are coming from
• You are building an extension and need to know where the drains run before you pour a foundation. Building within 3 metres of a public sewer needs a build over agreement, and you cannot apply for one if you do not know where the sewer is.
• You suspect subsidence. A leaking drain washes fines out of the ground and is a genuine cause of localised subsidence, particularly in clay.
• An insurer has asked for one to support a claim
• You have damp or a smell you cannot trace

You do not need one for a single slow sink that clears with a plunger. Save your money.

Regional Prices: London vs Norwich and Norfolk

In London, the costs sit at the top of the range. Most of the housing stock is Victorian terraces on original clay pipework, the drains are frequently shared, the street trees are mature and their roots are in everything, and a van often cannot park within fifty metres of the property. Budget £180 to £600 depending on the report you need. See our drainage services in London for what happens after the survey.

In Norwich and Norfolk, prices sit closer to the national average, generally £150 to £350. Access is usually easier, more properties have their own drains rather than shared runs, and parking is rarely a cost. The older parts of the city carry the same Victorian clay pipework and the same root problems as London does. Our drainage services in Norwich cover survey, excavation and repair as one job.

The pattern in both places is identical. It is the same clay pipe, the same open joints, the same tree roots. Only the price of getting a van to the front door really changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a CCTV drain survey cost?

A CCTV drain survey costs £150 to £350 for a standard domestic property in the UK in 2026. A homebuyer's survey with a full written report runs £200 to £400. In London, prices sit higher, typically £180 to £600. Commercial premises, multiple runs, or a survey that needs a manhole lifting in the public highway will run from £400 to £900. The main variables are how many runs you need surveyed, how easy it is to reach an inspection chamber, and whether the drain needs jetting clear before the camera can see anything.

How long does a CCTV drain survey take?

A straightforward domestic survey takes one to two hours on site. Larger properties, multiple runs, or drains that need jetting clear first will take half a day. The written report and footage normally follow within two to five working days, though many contractors can give you the headline findings before they leave.

Is a CCTV drain survey worth it when buying a house?

Yes, on any property built before roughly 1960. A standard RICS homebuyer survey does not inspect the drains at all, so a drainage defect will not show up in it. Original Victorian and Edwardian clay pipework is at an age where cracked pipes, open joints and root ingress are common rather than unusual. For £200 to £400 you either get peace of mind or you get a costed defect you can negotiate off the purchase price, and drain repairs run into thousands.

What is included in a CCTV drainage survey report?

A proper report includes the video footage supplied to you, a written summary of every defect found, a schematic plan of the drain runs showing where each defect sits, defects coded to the WRc Manual of Sewer Condition Classification, a condition grade for each run, and a costed recommendation of what needs repairing. If you are only offered a verbal opinion and a phone video, you have not had a survey.

Should I get a free CCTV drain survey?

Be careful. A free survey is a sales appointment, and the contractor recovers the cost of it in the repair quote. The person holding the camera has an incentive to find something expensive. A paid, independent survey has the opposite incentive, because the diagnosis is what you are buying. If the drain turns out to be fine, an independent surveyor can simply tell you so.

Who is responsible for my drains, me or the water company?

You are responsible for the drain within your boundary that serves only your property. The water company is responsible for the public sewer and, since the October 2011 private sewer transfer, for shared lateral drains and any pipe carrying flow from more than one property, including sections beyond your boundary. In Norfolk that is Anglian Water and in London it is Thames Water. A CCTV survey establishes which side of that line a defect sits on, which decides who pays for the repair.

Can a CCTV drain survey find rats?

Yes. Rats get into properties through defective drains, open joints and badly capped redundant pipes. A CCTV survey locates the entry point. Pest control removes the rats you currently have but does not close the hole they came through, so the problem returns. If you have had repeated infestations, survey the drains.

Do I need a drain survey before building an extension?

It is strongly advisable. You need to know where your drains run before you dig foundations. If you are building within 3 metres of a public sewer you will need a build over agreement from the water company, and Building Control will ask for it. Discovering a sewer under your foundation trench after you have started is one of the most expensive ways to find out.

Get a Drain Survey That Tells You the Truth

KiKK Groundworks carries out CCTV drainage surveys as a groundworks contractor, not as a lead generator for a repair we have already decided to sell you. You get the footage, a plan of the runs, and a costed repair plan tied to what the camera actually found. If your drain is sound, we will tell you that.

We are a groundworks firm, so if a repair is needed we excavate, replace and reinstate the run properly rather than jetting the same blockage clear every six months. Kallan quotes the job and works the job.

Need a CCTV drain survey? Get a proper diagnosis with the footage, the plan and an honest price. Call 01603 381016 or use the form. Get a Free Quote →

KiKK Groundworks provides drainage, CCTV drain surveys, drain repairs, foundations, driveways and groundworks across Norwich, Norfolk and London. NRSWA accredited, fully insured, owner-led.