Planned Drain Maintenance in Dorchester

What is planned drain maintenance?

Planned drain maintenance is a schedule of regular cleaning, emptying and inspection for a property's drains, worked out from how that site actually uses them and agreed with you in advance.

Instead of waiting for a blockage and calling someone out, the drains are looked after at intervals that keep build-up below the point where it causes trouble. Each visit is recorded, so over time you build up a picture of how the system is performing and where it needs attention.

It is mainly used by businesses, landlords and managing agents in Dorchester and the surrounding area: kitchens, pubs, hotels, care settings, schools, offices, shops and industrial units, where a drain failure costs more than the drain.

Who benefits from planned maintenance?

Planned maintenance suits sites where a blocked drain would stop trading or affect vulnerable people, and sites where the same drain keeps failing.

It is usually worth considering if any of these apply:

• A commercial kitchen with a grease trap or separator
• Repeat blockages or call-outs at the same site
• Washrooms used heavily by the public or by staff
• Car parks or yards with gullies, channel drains or an interceptor
• Several properties or units to manage at once
• A lease or a landlord requiring evidence of maintenance
• Residents or patients who cannot be without facilities

A quiet office with a short run to the sewer and no history of problems may not need a schedule at all. We will say so rather than recommend one.

What can a maintenance schedule include?

A schedule can include any routine drainage work your site needs, chosen to match the risks it actually has rather than taken from a fixed list.

Typical items:

• Jetting the runs most prone to build-up, such as kitchen and urinal wastes
• Emptying and cleaning grease traps and separators
• Clearing silt traps, yard gullies and channel drains
• Emptying oil interceptors by tanker
• Descaling urinal pipework
• Lifting and checking chambers, covers and rodding points
• Periodic CCTV checks on runs with a history of problems
• Written notes after every visit, including any recommendations

Repairs are not part of a maintenance schedule. If a visit finds a defect that needs fixing, it is reported to you and priced separately.

How is a maintenance schedule worked out?

A schedule is worked out from the site itself: what drains it has, how heavily they are used, what has gone wrong before and what condition they are in now. We then agree it with you.

It usually starts with a first visit to see the system. That means finding and lifting the chambers, noting where each run goes, cleaning the parts that need it and, where the history suggests a defect, running a camera through. The amount of fat, silt or scale found tells us how fast each part of the system builds up.

From that, we suggest which items to include and how often each one needs doing. Different parts of the same site often need different intervals. You decide what goes in, and nothing is added later without your agreement.

How often should commercial drains be maintained?

There is no fixed answer. A busy kitchen's grease trap may need attention every few weeks, while washroom runs or yard gullies on the same site may need it only a few times a year.

The interval for each item depends on what it carries and how fast it builds up. Kitchen wastes and grease traps usually need the most frequent attention. Urinal pipework scales steadily. Surface water gullies tend to fill with leaves and silt in autumn and after building work nearby.

The first few visits show whether the intervals are right. If a trap is barely half full when emptied, the interval can be stretched; if a run is blocking between visits, it needs shortening. Any change is discussed and agreed with you first.

What happens on a maintenance visit?

On each visit we carry out the items due on the schedule, check the rest of the system for anything new, and leave you a record of what was done and found.

• The visit is booked for a time agreed with you, usually outside trading hours
• We work through the scheduled items: cleaning runs, emptying traps, clearing gullies
• Chambers are lifted and checked, even where no work is due on them
• Anything that has changed since the last visit, such as fat in a chamber that was clean, is noted
• Where a camera check is scheduled or justified, footage is recorded
• Waste is removed, with transfer notes where needed
• The site is left clean and you get the visit record

If we find something that needs attention beyond the schedule, we tell you before doing anything about it.

How long does each maintenance visit take?

A visit to a single kitchen or small unit is often a few hours; a large site, or a visit that includes tanker work and a camera check, can take most of a day.

The time depends on how many items are due, how many chambers are on the site, how much build-up there is and how easy the access is. The first visit usually takes longest, because chambers are being found and recorded for the first time.

Once the schedule is running, visits tend to be quicker and more predictable, because the drains are being kept in condition rather than recovered from neglect. We give you an estimate for each visit, so staff and any closures can be planned.

Planned or reactive: which works out cheaper?

Where drains are heavily used or keep blocking, planned maintenance usually costs less over time than paying for emergencies. On a quiet site with no history of problems, reactive call-outs are often cheaper.

The true cost of a drain failure is rarely the call-out. It is the lost service, closed washrooms, spoiled stock, clean-up and the risk to a food hygiene inspection or a resident's welfare. Planned work also happens at a time you choose rather than during service.

The records from a schedule help too. They show where money is being spent, so a run that keeps needing cleaning can be identified as one that needs repairing instead.

What planned maintenance can and can't do

Planned maintenance keeps build-up of fat, silt, scale and debris under control and catches developing problems early. It cannot stop blockages caused by misuse, and it does not repair damaged pipes.

If wipes or fat are going down the drains, a schedule will reduce the impact, but the fix includes changing what goes in. If a pipe is cracked, displaced or sagging, cleaning it more often treats the symptom, and the honest recommendation is a repair.

Maintenance also covers your private drains only. Problems in a shared drain or public sewer are generally the water company's to deal with, and we will tell you if that is where a problem lies.

How much does planned drain maintenance cost?

The cost depends on what the schedule includes, how often each item is done, the size of the site and how many sites are involved.

The schedule and the price for each visit are agreed with you before the first one takes place. If something on a visit means the work needs to change, such as a run that has blocked or a trap that has failed, we stop, show you and agree the extra before doing it. Repairs found during maintenance are always quoted separately.

Who is responsible for maintaining the drains?

Responsibility for private drains on a commercial site usually follows the lease or title: often the tenant maintains them, sometimes the landlord, and on shared estates it may come through a service charge.

Check the lease before setting up a schedule, so the right party is arranging and paying for it. Where landlord and tenant share responsibility, a schedule with clear records helps avoid arguments about who should have done what.

A schedule covers only the drains that are yours to maintain. Shared sewers, and lateral drains outside the boundary, have in general been looked after by the water company since private sewers were transferred in October 2011. Around Dorchester that is Wessex Water.

Can planned maintenance help with insurance or compliance?

It can help, because a record of regular maintenance shows that drains, grease traps and interceptors were being looked after, which is often what an insurer, landlord or inspector wants to see.

For a food business, records of grease trap emptying and waste transfer notes support your food safety and waste duty of care paperwork. For a landlord or managing agent, they show the building's drainage is being kept in order. After a flood or blockage, they can help show the failure was not down to neglect.

Records cannot make an insurer accept a claim or make sure an inspection is passed. They give you evidence, and the decision stays with whoever is assessing it.

Reviewing the schedule as the site changes

A maintenance schedule should change when the site changes, so it is worth reviewing whenever the use, the occupancy or the drains themselves change.

A new menu, more covers, an extension, a change of tenant or a repair to a problem run can all mean an item needs doing more or less often. So can what the records show: a gully that is always clean, or a trap that is always nearly full.

We point out when the visit records suggest a change, and you decide whether to make it. The aim is a schedule that matches what the drains actually need, not one that stays fixed because it was set up that way.