I am well equipped to clear most blockages, both in your internal waste pipework and sanitary appliances, and in your outside drains.

Cost
£75 for up to an hour + parts (Mon-Fri 9am - 5pm within 10 miles of Salisbury), then £60/hr to the nearest 0.1 hour. For jobs exceeding two hours it's simply £60 per hour, start to finish, plus parts. I am not VAT registered, so there is no additional VAT to pay on my labour. My rates are based on the Average UK Plumber day rate as published by Checkatrade.

Blocked sinks, basins, baths and showers
Usually these can be cleared with a good plunger. I may also need to open up the trap (u-bend) and waste pipework to clear them with a flexible snake and to flush them through with mains water.

Blocked Toilets
If the blockage is in the soil pipe just behind the toilet, a plunger may be sufficient to clear it. However, it is advisable to also lift the manhole cover outside and to check whether the drains need rodding and jetting.

Rodding and Jetting of Drains
When required, jetting usually takes 1 to 2 hours, but times are quite variable. Some blocked drains are easy to clear. Others need perseverance. Occasionally it is necessary to remove the toilet and jet the soil pipe from the toilet end, as well as from the outside drain. In this case it is an advantage that I am a plumber and not just a drains specialist.

Drain Camera Inspection
Often jetting drains clears the problem and reveals its cause at the same time. If not, I can do a drain camera inspection if you would like one, especially if the problem has occurred before and you are concerned it will happen again. This is usually best done after the drains have been jetted, as it is hard to see much through the camera if the drain is still blocked and full of muck. If a camera inspection reveals a problem with tree roots, or a partial collapse of the drain, I will ask you at that point to contact a drain specialist. Although I am better equipped than the average plumber to tackle most blockages, I do not excavate collapsed drains or have the equipment needed to line a drain as may be necessary to prevent ongoing problems with tree roots. Drainexperts.co.uk is one firm I have come across in the Salisbury area that might be worth a try.

Blocked Saniflos
If your toilet has a macerator that has stopped working properly, it most likely needs opening up and cleaning inside, and the discharge pipe may need flushing through to clear a blockage. Expect this to take about 1.5 to 2 hours, as long as there is reasonable access around the Saniflo. Boxed-in Saniflos are likely to take longer. If your Saniflo has burnt out and needs replacing, I can help you source a new one at the best price. Replacement of like-for-like is usually about a 2 hour job.

Bad smells in your bathroom or kitchen
Every sanitary device (toilet, sink, basin, shower, or bath) is connected to the waste via a trap, which is the technical name for a U-bend. If the U-bend remains full of water (as intended) after the device has emptied, this water acts as a seal to prevent bad smells coming back up from the drain. If you are getting bad drain smells in your bathroom or kitchen, it suggests that water is being forced or sucked out of the U-bend by either positive or negative pressure, as follows:

1) If there is a blockage further down the drain then flushing the toilet may cause a positive pressure that causes water or bad smells to back up, usually in a bath or shower tray which are low-lying. In that case it is worth lifting the drain cover outside to inspect the drains and see if there is any sign of a blockage. If so, they may need jetting.

2) If the waste pipe between a sanitary device and the soil pipe has too long or too steep a run, you may find that after it empties you hear a glugging sound. This is because the momentum of water running down the pipe is causing a vacuum that is sucking water out of the U-bend. That leaves bad smells free to pass up the way from its plug hole. In the case of a glugging sink or basin, this can usually be fixed easily by replacing the trap for one that has an anti-syphon valve. An anti-syphon valve is designed to open and allow air to enter when there is a vacuum, but otherwise to remain closed so that it doesn't leak water or smells. Although anti-syphon traps are also available for baths and showers, they are often difficult to fit as an after-thought because of the lack of available space underneath the bath or shower tray. That said, if the basin waste runs into the same waste pipe as the bath or shower, an anti-siphon trap on the basin may fix the problem of the water seal being sucked out of the bath or shower trap.

3) Could there be a leak, such as from the soil pipe at the back of your toilet? If your toilet has a hidden cistern, this might not be immediately obvious.

4) Is there sufficient ventilation to allow the exit of bad smells from a toilet? Is the extractor fan working? Is there a window that can be opened slightly? If not, might it help to have an automatic Febreeze dispenser that squirts a small amount of air freshener whenever it detects movement?

5) Is the device used regularly? For example, if a shower or bath is rarely used, the water seal may evaporate and dry out. Running some water down it every now and again should fix this.

6) If flushing a toilet causes a glugging sound in a bath or shower, and this is not rectified by jetting the drains to remove a blockage, it is possible that the soil pipe is not venting correctly. The main soil pipe in a house vents externally, either running up the back of a house to about a metre above the highest window, or running through a roof tile. It could be there is a blockage such as a bird's next in the top of the vent pipe (although the top of a soil pipe should have a fitting that is designed to prevent this). Alternatively, you may have an auxiliary soil pipe that vents internally and is capped with an Air Admittance Valve (AAV) which is a large equivalent of an anti-syphon valve. These rarely fail, but it is not an impossibility.

If you have considered all of the above possibilities, I am happy to come and investigate. However, please bear in mind that I do charge a minimum of an hour's callout, and I can't promise that I will find an obvious explanation or solution for your problem of bad smells. If this is a new problem, it is probably a blockage or a leak. If it has always been a problem, it is possible there is a flaw somewhere in the way your waste pipework has been installed. That might be easy to fix with an anti-siphon trap, but it might be something that is hard to rectify.