Drain Unblocking Arnhem

Hills, river and post-war rebuilding: why drains in Arnhem get blocked

Arnhem is a city with two faces. North of the Nederrijn (Lower Rhine), the ground rises towards the Veluwe, with sloping streets, villa districts and lots of old trees. South of the river, the land is flat and most districts were built after the war. For drain unblocking in Arnhem, that means every district has its own causes, and so needs its own approach.

What's more, the water comes from two directions here: from above, when a downpour washes down from the hills, and from below, where the groundwater close to the river can be high.

Drain unblocking in Arnhem, district by district

Between the villas near Sonsbeek and the terraced houses of Schuytgraaf lies well over a century of house building. Each period has its own materials, and with them its own weak spots in the drainage.

Villa districts between Sonsbeek and the woods

In Alteveer, Cranevelt and around Sonsbeek Park, many older homes stand among tall trees. The pipe from the house to the street sewer is often still made of clay there: ceramic sections slotted together with a socket joint every metre or so. Tree roots find moisture and nutrients in those joints. First a thin rootlet grows in; a few years later, a tangle of roots hangs in the pipe, catching kitchen grease and paper.

In Schaarsbergen, on the edge of the woods, the plots are larger and the pipes under the garden longer. More pipe means more joints, and so more places where a root can work its way in.

Working-class districts on the slope: Klarendal and Sint Marten

Closer to the centre are the old working-class districts, with narrow houses built against the slope. Bathrooms and kitchens here were often fitted only decades after the houses went up, with long horizontal waste pipes under the floor and a few bends too many. In the Modekwartier, the fashion quarter in Klarendal, studios, little shops, cafés and restaurants drain into pipes that were never designed for that load.

The slope plays a part too. If a sewer connection runs very steeply downhill, the water races ahead and leaves paper and food scraps behind. These pile up where the pipe levels out again, and that's exactly where a blockage forms over time.

A city centre rebuilt after the war

The city centre was badly damaged in the Battle of Arnhem and largely rebuilt after the war. As a result, many shops and flats in the centre have waste pipes from the 1950s and 1960s. Around the Korenmarkt, restaurant kitchens add to the load. Frying and cooking fat cools in the pipe, sticks to the wall and forms a hard layer that steadily narrows the bore. If you live above a restaurant, you're often the first to notice: a sink that drains slowly or a sour smell from the plughole.

Presikhaaf and the post-war east

In Presikhaaf, flats and long terraces of family homes went up after the war. Many blocks have since been refurbished, but by no means all of them have had the soil stack in the wall replaced. After so many decades, the inside of the pipe is rough and coated with deposits that catch wipes and grease. If that stack blocks at the bottom, the ground-floor resident is the first to notice: that's where the upstairs neighbours' water comes up in the toilet or the shower drain.

Arnhem-Zuid: from Malburgen to Schuytgraaf

South of the Rhine lie Malburgen, Elderveld, Rijkerswoerd, De Laar and Schuytgraaf. The sewers here are younger and mostly plastic, but on flat ground a pipe has less natural fall. The water flows more slowly and dirt has more chance to settle. Malburgen, one of the first post-war districts on this side of the river, has been extensively redeveloped in recent decades, with demolition and new building, so old and new sewer pipes lie close together. In Schuytgraaf, a Vinex district (a planned new-build area), we occasionally find building debris in the drains, such as cement or tile adhesive rinsed down a plughole while the homes were being finished.

Water from the hills, water from the ground

Cloudbursts on sloping streets

In a heavy summer storm, rainwater runs along the street to the lowest points. If the sewer can no longer handle the volume, the water looks for a way out through the lowest drain it can find. In basement flats and cellars at the bottom of a slope, it sometimes comes up through the floor drain. That's called backflow, and it's exactly the moment you want to get someone on the phone quickly.

A sewer connection that's already half blocked makes it worse. For a basement flat, a non-return valve in the drain can be the answer; the engineer will assess on site whether that makes sense for your home.

What the ground does to your sewer pipe

The north of the city sits on the Veluwe ridge: sand and gravel pushed up by ice sheets during an ice age. Rainwater drains away quickly there, so in a dry summer the ground gets very dry. Tree roots then go looking for moisture and find it in the joints of an old sewer pipe.

In the south, the ground is river clay and the groundwater is closer to the surface. If an older pipe has a crack or a loose socket, water carrying fine silt can seep in when groundwater levels are high. That silt settles in the pipe and slowly narrows it.

Sewer unblocking in Arnhem: when the blockage is outside the house

If the washbasin, shower and toilet are all draining slowly at once, or water is coming up out of the inspection chamber in the garden, the blockage is no longer inside the house. With a blocked sewer, the problem is usually in the sewer connection: the pipe that runs from the outside wall of your house to the main sewer under the street. In the north, sewer unblocking in Arnhem often means working on a long pipe under a driveway or garden; in the south, it's more likely a flat section where silt has settled.

Where the engineer starts

The engineer usually works from the rodding eye (an access fitting: a section of pipe with a removable cap) or from an inspection chamber in the front or back garden. If you know where it is, let us know when you call. With older villas, that chamber is quite often hidden under paving or a planter. In that case we'll work out together the best way to get at the pipe without breaking anything up unnecessarily.

Who owns which part of the pipe?

Throughout the Netherlands, the rule of thumb is that the owner looks after the part of the sewer connection on their own property, and the municipality looks after the part under the public road. Arnhem municipality can tell you where that boundary lies for your home. If you rent, report the blockage to your landlord or housing association as well. In a block of flats, the shared soil stack usually falls to the VvE (owners' association). We clear the pipe and tell you exactly what we found, so you can pass that on.

Cleaning or repair?

With old clay pipes in the north, a camera inspection is almost always worth it. You can see for yourself on the screen whether there are only roots in the pipe, or whether it has also sagged or cracked. That determines whether cleaning is enough or whether more work will be needed later on.

Typical call-outs from north and south

The garden inspection chamber overflows in dry weather

If water or paper comes up in the inspection chamber in the garden when it hasn't rained, something is holding up the flow further along the pipe. In tree-lined streets in the north, roots are the prime suspect. Keep water use to a minimum and switch off the washing machine. The engineer cuts through the roots with a special cutting head on the drain machine, then flushes the pipe through at high pressure.

One shower for a whole student house

In student houses and converted buildings, a lot of hair and soap residue goes down the same shower drain every day. Once the shower starts draining more slowly, the water is usually up to your ankles within a few days. Take out the grate and remove whatever you can see. If the water still won't go down, the blockage is deeper and shower drain unblocking with a drain snake is the quickest fix.

A gurgling toilet after a renovation

When a new bathroom has been put into an older building, in the city centre or Klarendal for example, the toilet sometimes gurgles as the bath empties. That points to a vent that isn't working properly or a connection without enough fall. Unblocking removes the blockage, and a camera then shows whether the new pipe joins the old one properly.

How we tackle a blocked drain in Arnhem

It all starts with a short conversation. Call 085 333 4698 and tell us which drain it is, how long it's been going on and whether water is also coming back up in other drains. Based on that, you'll get an initial assessment and a price estimate before anyone is even on the way.

An engineer then drives to your address and is usually there within the hour, depending on the time of day and the traffic. Once there, they first work out where the blockage is. A blockage in the trap calls for a different approach from roots ten metres along the pipe under the lawn. Depending on what they find, they use a plunger, a drain snake, an electric drain machine or a high-pressure jetter. Afterwards, they explain what caused it and how you can stop it happening again.

Unblocking, cleaning and inspection throughout Arnhem

Drain unblocking in Arnhem isn't a sideline for us: we focus entirely on blockages and sewers. As a drain unblocking company in Arnhem, we take on jobs such as:

• a toilet that won't flush or keeps gurgling: toilet unblocking, including in flats with a shared soil stack;
• a kitchen drain full of grease, typical of flats above restaurants: kitchen sink unblocking;
• sewer connections full of roots or silt, which we clear with high-pressure sewer cleaning;
• recurring problems with no obvious cause, where a camera inspection of the sewer gives a definite answer;
• an overflowing gutter after rain in a tree-lined street: downpipe unblocking.

Price estimate up front, even for a night-time emergency

When you call us for drain unblocking in Arnhem, you get a price estimate up front. Unblocking starts from €129, and the call-out charge isn't included. If you call in the evening, at night, at the weekend or on a public holiday, we charge an out-of-hours rate. For work whose scope is hard to judge beforehand, such as a garden pipe completely overgrown with roots, you can ask for a quote. We always give you the estimate before the engineer starts, so it's your decision whether the work goes ahead. Customers rate us 5/5 based on 48 Google reviews.

Standing water? Here's how to limit the damage

A blockage rarely gets worse if you leave it alone for a while, but it will if you keep flushing. These steps help keep the trouble to a minimum:

• If the toilet is blocked, don't flush again, and switch off the dishwasher and washing machine, as they pump water into the same drain.
• For a kitchen sink or washbasin, try a plunger first and block the overflow with a wet cloth.
• Don't pour boiling water into a plastic drain, and steer clear of harsh drain cleaners.
• If water is coming out of the floor drain in a cellar or basement flat, move your belongings higher up.

Staying one step ahead of roots and grease

Put cooking fat in the general waste instead of down the sink. Only flush toilet paper. A simple hair catcher in the shower saves a lot of bother. If there are large trees close to the sewer connection, have the pipe checked every few years, before the roots block it completely.

Drain unblocking in Arnhem and the wider area

We work throughout the Netherlands, so you can call us from beyond the city boundary too. A little further south, on the Waal, we help residents of Nijmegen. Towards the Veluwe we cover Apeldoorn, and further west Amersfoort and Utrecht. Some places have their own page under our service area; if you live somewhere else, just call us all the same.

Is water standing in the shower, the sink or the garden inspection chamber right now? Call 085 333 4698 for drain unblocking in Arnhem. Day or night, you'll go straight through to someone who knows drains and sewers inside out.