1. Water level in your toilet rises slightly higher than normal when flushed. 2. Water level in your toilet drops lower than normal when flushed. 3. When flushing your toilet, water rises in your bath outlet. 4. When flushing a toilet, water rises or overflows from an external drain. 5. When draining a sink, water overflows from an external drain. 6. Noticing foul odours, either internally or externally. 7. Gurgling noises from baths, sinks or toilets, or all. 8. Water leaking from a manhole cover. 9. Evidence of paper around an external drain. 10. Water pooling or leaking from the base of external soil vent pipe.

Of course, you can flush toilet wipes. But then again, you could flush a bar of soap if you wanted to, or a child's toy, which happens more often than you would think by the way. Suffice to say, if you use and flush any type of wipe, including toilet wipes, you will at some point experience a blocked drain, guaranteed. Holding up and compacting within an underground drainage system or a vertical soil vent pipe, these are probably the most difficult of blockages to clear, especially if no access points exist on the drainage system. Just remember, no matter what the product say’s on the packaging, toilet wipes should never be flushed, unless you like to throw your money down the drain.

As a drainage engineer who's been in this business for over 35 years, removing a toilet pan to clear a blockage has been an extreme rarity. Of course, this procedure seems to be the first port of call for many companies out there; wrongly I may add. If a blocked toilet cannot be easily cleared from the toilet pan, using standard equipment, chances are that the blockage is probably located outside the property, causing the soil vent pipe and toilet to fill. So why remove the toilet pan? Why create the mess? Why have a foul smell in the property? And why make the job far more difficult and prolonged? Although a lack of experience could be to blame for this procedure, the removal of the toilet pan could be a tactic by the disreputable drainage engineer, implemented simply to increase costs. And while on this topic, if ever recommended by someone that you need to high-pressure water jet downstream of a removed toilet to clear a blockage, into a soil vent pipe, please think again. This should only ever be seen as a last resort procedure, which, for obvious reasons, could have disastrous consequences!

Having regular or repeat blockages do not always mean you have a damaged, defective, or partially collapsed underground drain. There are many different reasons which could cause blocked drains to re-block soon after clearing. Quite often though, the underlying cause can simply be due to misuse; the flushing of toilet wipes for instance. And in most cases of misuse, with some investigation, the trained and fully experienced operative can determine this during the clearing process. But of course, where all simple possibilities have been eliminated, an underground drain survey would be recommended.