The defect sealed from inside the existing pipe. The survey comes first because the liner is measured from it, not because anybody is being cautious.
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People are sometimes impatient with the camera survey, and it is a fair instinct: it looks like an inspection standing between you and the repair. It is not. It is the measurement the repair is manufactured from.
A liner is made to the run it is going into. Length, diameter and how it has to negotiate the bends are all taken off the survey, and those numbers are what get ordered. Nobody has a van full of liners in every combination, and here there is nowhere to go and collect one anyway.
So relining is genuinely a two stage piece of work, and it is better to know that at the start. Visit one surveys and measures. The material is prepared. Visit two installs it and reinstates any junctions. Anybody promising the whole thing in a single appointment is either carrying something that happens to fit or is leaving part of the story out.
The survey earns its keep in a second way. It also settles whether a liner is the right method at all, because a pipe that has collapsed or dropped out of grade cannot be lined and needs replacing instead. Finding that out first is considerably better than finding it out halfway through.
Ask what measurements it was based on. There is only one honest answer to that question.
Length, diameter, and the bends it has to negotiate, all taken from the camera survey. It is a manufactured item cut and prepared for your pipe rather than something pulled off a shelf.
Which is the reason the survey is not a formality preceding the job. It is the measurement the job is built from.
Diameter matters more than people expect. A liner takes a few millimetres off the bore, which is immaterial on a healthy line and worth thinking about on one that was already marginal.
Survey and measure, prepare the material, then return and install. On a straightforward run that is two visits rather than one, and it is worth knowing at the outset instead of discovering it on the day.
The install itself is usually a single day. It is the preparation in between that people do not expect.
Between the two visits the line keeps working as it did before. Relining is not an emergency repair and it is not sold as one, so if the drain is blocked today it gets cleared today and lined properly afterwards.
Footage is what separates a pipe that can be lined from one that cannot. A crack, an open joint or root ingress lines well. A section that has collapsed or dropped out of grade does not.
Establishing that first is the difference between a fixed price and a conversation halfway through the work. We would rather have it at the start.
It also fixes the length. A quote written from footage says how many metres are being lined, and that number is what you compare between quotes rather than the headline figure.
Roots do not break sound pipe. They find an opening that has already moved, and jointed clay laid decades ago on a block this size offers a great many of them.
Cutting this season's roots out treats the symptom and leaves the door open. A continuous liner removes the entry point, which is the only version of the repair that lasts.
You do not have to remove the tree, and we would not suggest it. The relationship between a tree and a drain is a problem with the joint, not with the tree, and it is the joint that gets dealt with.
Large allotments mean long runs to the boundary. Mature trees close to those runs mean roots at the joints. Old jointed clay means joints every metre for a root to try.
Put the three together and you have the standard case for relining rather than repeated clearing, which describes a good proportion of the older housing here.
It is also why clearing here can feel like it works and then does not. A cable through a root mass buys a season, sometimes two, and the interval shortens each time until somebody films it.
A liner needs a host pipe holding roughly its original shape. Where a length has crushed, or where the fall has gone so water no longer runs downhill through it, that section has to be dug up and replaced.
It is not a reason to write off the rest. A short replacement plus a liner over the remainder is a common and sensible outcome.
Grade is the one worth understanding. A pipe can be entirely intact and still fail, because a section has settled and water no longer runs downhill through it. No liner fixes a fall problem and anybody claiming otherwise is guessing.
Where a branch enters the run, the liner covers the opening and it gets reinstated by cutting it back open from the inside. That is ordinary practice and it gets checked on camera afterwards.
The post-work recording is not a courtesy. It is how you confirm the junctions are open and the liner is sitting properly along its whole length.
If a junction is missed, the branch it serves stops draining, and that is an obvious immediate symptom rather than a hidden defect. It is the sort of thing the after footage exists to rule out.
Before and after, plus a written account of what was found and what was done. Yours to keep whatever it shows.
Worth filing with the property papers. It is the only evidence that the line under the garden has been dealt with properly, and it is a genuinely useful thing to hand over at sale.
Check both are describing the same length of pipe, and get that in metres rather than in adjectives. Two quotes that look far apart are frequently pricing different amounts of work.
Then ask what each includes by way of putting things back. A dig price that finishes at backfill is not a finished job where there is paving, a driveway or an established garden over the line, and on these blocks there usually is.
Finally, ask what the footage shows. Quotes that disagree about method usually disagree about the diagnosis, and the recording settles that faster than either explanation.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Deducted from the job if you proceed, and the footage is yours either way.
Where one short length is genuinely the whole problem.
Priced on the measured length and the access rather than by the hour.
Reopened from inside once the liner has cured.
Where the survey shows a collapse and a liner is the wrong answer.
End to end, because length, diameter and bends are what the liner is made to.
A figure built on real numbers, with the recording behind it rather than an estimate.
The material made to the run, then the pipe cleaned, the liner cured in place and any junctions reopened.
So you can see the finished surface, and you keep both recordings.
Get the line surveyed before anybody breaks ground. It regularly changes both the method and the number.
Call 1300 381 569Because the liner is made to the run. Its length, its diameter and how it has to negotiate the bends are all taken from the camera survey, and those measurements are what get ordered. A quote given without them is a guess at a manufactured item, and a guess at a manufactured item is how a fixed price stops being fixed.
In practice, yes, and it is worth understanding why rather than being surprised by it. Visit one surveys and measures. The material is prepared to those measurements. Visit two installs it. Anyone promising both in one appointment is either carrying stock that happens to fit or is not telling you the whole thing.
A resin sleeve is drawn through the pipe you already have and cured hard in place, using the old pipe as the mould. The defect is sealed, any open joint is bridged, and what is left is continuous with no entry point. Nothing is excavated.
The material is rated at around fifty years. More usefully, the repair is continuous, so there is no joint left at the point that failed.
By a couple of millimetres, and it rarely matters. The new inner surface is smoother than the original, so flow generally ends up the same or better.
No. A pipe that has collapsed, lost its shape or dropped out of grade needs that section replaced. The survey settles which of those you have, which is another reason it comes first.
The camera survey is $250 to $450 and comes off the job if you proceed. A patch over a single defect is $1,500 to $2,500. A full section is $4,000 to $9,000 depending on length and access.
Tell us what a camera has already shown, if anything, and whether you still have the footage. If nobody has surveyed it, that is where this starts.
Surveyed, measured, made to fit, and installed without opening the ground.
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