Plumber & drainage engineers in City of London

The City of London is run by the City of London Corporation rather than a London borough, and its building stock is mostly commercial. Glass office towers stand next to Victorian banking halls, livery company halls, Wren churches and narrow medieval alleys. The Barbican Estate and a scattering of mansion blocks make up most of the residential side. Beneath it all, drainage ranges from modern pumped systems in new towers to clay and brick drains that have served older buildings for well over a century.

Office buildings bring their own problems. Washrooms on every floor, tea points, staff kitchens and showers for cyclists all drain into stacks and below-ground runs that see very heavy use on weekdays and very little at weekends. Problems can go unnoticed until the building fills up again. We clear stacks and drains with rods or high-pressure water jetting and use CCTV to find the cause, so facilities teams get an answer rather than a repeat callout.

The City’s pubs, restaurants and sandwich shops serve a very large weekday population, and their kitchens put a steady load of grease into the drains. Many are in basements, with drainage pumped up to the sewer. We clear grease blockages, jet kitchen drains and gullies, and inspect lines and manholes with CCTV. Where a drain is damaged, we choose the least disruptive repair, which in a busy office or a listed building often means no-dig relining rather than excavation.

Working in the City means planning around strict access rules. Bank junction is restricted to buses and cyclists on weekdays, many streets have timed closures or security barriers, Upper and Lower Thames Street are red routes, and the whole Square Mile is inside the Congestion Charge zone and ULEZ. Our engineers plan routes and loading before setting off. Because we are open 24 hours, a lot of City work can be done at night or at weekends, when buildings are empty and streets are quieter.