Drainlaying in Napier and Hawke's Bay

Old drains in old suburbs

A lot of Napier housing stock is old enough that the original drainage is glazed clay, laid in short lengths with a joint every metre. It was good work at the time and much of it is still going. What finishes it is ground movement and tree roots: a joint opens a few millimetres, a root finds the moisture, and inside a couple of seasons there is a mat of root growth in the pipe.

The symptom is a drain that blocks every year. The cause is a pipe that needs work. We put a camera down first so you are spending money on the section that has actually failed rather than the whole run.

What we lay

• Sewer drainage, new and replacement
• Stormwater, downpipe connections and soakage systems
• Drainage for new builds, extensions and sleepouts
• Repairs and relaying of failed clay and earthenware lines
• Gully traps, inspection points and connections to the council main
• Light commercial drainage

Plumbing and drainage under one roof

Drainage is one of the three trades this firm has held tickets in since 1964. The same person holds plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying qualifications, which is genuinely useful on the jobs where a plumbing problem turns out to be a drainage one. You are not standing in the driveway while two trades argue about whose side of the gully it is on.

New builds

On a new house the drainage goes in early, and getting it wrong is expensive to undo once there is concrete over it. We work in with builders across Hawke's Bay, set the falls properly, and get the work inspected and certified so the paperwork is right when the code of compliance comes around.