Why Drain Surveys Are Vital To Control Rats Podcast Transcript
Below is the transcript of our recent podcast: Why Drain Surveys Are Vital To Control Rats. You can listen to this podcast here.
Neil Foley
Hello, everybody, Neil Foley here. Delighted today we've got Stewart Howard, who is operations manager at the Abate Pest Management. How are you, Stewart?
Stewart Howard
Not bad, not bad yourself?
Neil Foley
Yeah, very well, thank you. I'm looking forward to this one because I hear you talking a lot about drain surveys, and what we're going to do over the next few minutes or so is explore the drain surveys that I know you do and are highly experienced in, in terms of why we would do them, what we're hoping to find and just get some of the inside track, if you like.
Stewart Howard
Sure, no problem.
Neil Foley
Okay, so let's kick off by saying this may sound a bit of an obvious question, but why would you do a drain survey?
Stewart Howard
Plenty of factors why you can do them from a rodent aspect they obviously know well, 80% to 90% of all rodent ingress into residential properties, commercial properties is due to drains, defective drains, purely down to the way that drains have been built. Victorian drainage and residential connecting to new drainage, anything from 80s onwards. So, yeah, there's always scope to look into the drains first.
Neil Foley
Why would a rat go in a drain? When you say rodents, do you mean rats?
Stewart Howard
Rats, yes. So mice wouldn't be in the drain at all. It's purely rats. Rats are in there because there's a food source. There's a water source, basically, and they're out the way of predators and everything else. Old Victorian drainage, it's easy for them to get into.
Neil Foley
So when you say a food source food source. Food source, that you don't mean the faeces.
Stewart Howard
Our waste. Yeah.
Neil Foley
So waste, literally our waste blimey.
Stewart Howard
Exactly. The joys of sweet corn and carrot and things.
Neil Foley
All of that as well. And I suppose lots of people put food waste down, food waste, sinks and stuff as well.
Stewart Howard
Obviously, your kitchen waste goes into the drain, so there's a high fat content in the drain, which is the protein that they're after.
Neil Foley
So the rats, like the drains, gives them shelter and warmth, I suppose, as well…
Stewart Howard
They need water on a daily basis, so they do get in that water from the drains.
Neil Foley
So how do they get into the drains in the first place?
Stewart Howard
Sometimes the manhole lids and everything else are poorly installed. Over time, they'll sort of basically be in need of repair, so cement will start breaking down and things like that. So they'll burrow in, getting in via the brick chamber, and then once they're in, they're off and running. But they'll always try and bust out and try and find places to go, warmth, which will be people's lofts, kitchens and places like that.
Neil Foley
And will they actually come up through the toilet?
Stewart Howard
Through the toilet, yeah. It's not an old wives tale or urban myth. They will come up. I've had plenty of occasions where I've been called out to jobs where there's rats in the toilet bowl. Someone's got up in the morning and basically gone to take and do their normal business and lifted the lid and found that there's a nice rat sitting in there.
Neil Foley
Be a shock, wouldn't it? So the rats are accessing the drains, not purely to access our home, they're actually accessing the drains because that's a good safe environment of them to live in…
Stewart Howard
Which is why they say that you're never more than 7ft away from the rat below your feet.
Neil Foley
So it just happens to be luck that they find a way into the property and have then got free rein
Stewart Howard
Exactly. They can go anywhere they want. All right. So whether or not a pipe, an old vitrified clay pipe, is damaged that they sort of busted out of, could be under the foundations of the building, or it will lead directly to a loft access area. Sometimes in lofts they'll have the waste extract that goes up to the roof because of the way that the pipe comes up, it will be a concertina pipe, like a tumble dryer job, so a flexi hose pipe, and they'll chew their way out of that. Then they've got access to the drain, access to water and food, but they've also got a purpose built nesting insulation and everything else, which is normally what keeps people awake at night, because obviously they can hear them all in the ceiling.
Neil Foley
And I know you've told me before, they're creatures of habit, aren't they?
Stewart Howard
So they design a route, they'll follow that route continuously until it's stopped, whether that's a repair in the drain or a repair to pipe work in the loft and things like that. But they're naturally inquisitive as well, so they'll travel just to see what's there, see what's around.
Neil Foley
They're quite cautious animals.
Stewart Howard
Very cautious, yeah. So they've basically got something called neophobia. So anything new in their environment, they'll tend to stay away from them until they've worked out that it's safe.
Neil Foley
And why would somebody use us for a drain survey as a pest control company rather than dyna rod or one of the traditional ones?
Stewart Howard
Right, so dyna rod, your normal water board people that would do a CCTV investigation are purely looking for the functionality of the drain. They're not looking at rodent access, so they would look at defects that would stop waste leaving the property and going into the drainage. But also the fact that their remit is the drains that are off of your property. So the drains that are on your property, within your garden boundaries or sometimes under kitchens, under extensions, is purely the residents responsibility. So they wouldn't go that far. They would look at just the functionality of that drain and they will sign it off and say it's working fine. But from a rodent aspect point of view, from our point of view, that wouldn't go far enough to say how rats are getting in.
Neil Foley
And I guess people tend to use those sort of companies when you got a blockage or something, normally block or.
Stewart Howard
Backups further down, because normally residential properties are linked by four properties per run. So one further down might be blocked and then they'll come in, but they'll use like dyna rod because it will normally be a main. But, yeah, they're not looking from a rodent point of view.
Neil Foley
And so specifically, what are you looking for?
Stewart Howard
What we are looking for breaks, things that they could use like slipped misconnections, vitrified clay is a bit like brickwork, so it's joined by mortar. That's normally the weak point in the pipe and over time, if that's actually sort of broken down with fats and various things over time, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, sometimes even longer, the rats will use that as a point of access into your property. So they will always go for the weakest point, which is nine times out of ten in the Victorian drain or an older drain.
Neil Foley
So I suppose the bit I struggle to understand is if the rat's in the drain because of a gap, round the cover or whatever they've drilled in, why does there need to be a break for them to access your house? Because actually, surely they could just go straight in couldn’t they?
Stewart Howard
Well, basically, so if it's around a manhole and things like that, that's just where they're going. They're going to go into that drain.
Neil Foley
Sometimes you can't see that
Stewart Howard
Sometimes we can't see but it's still there. I mean, they can get to places we can’t
A rat will be able to get into a hole the size of your thumb, so as long as they can get their head in, then they're in. So regardless of how big they are, obviously that works to our advantage if we're using poisons, because when they're squeezing through really small holes, they're breaking blood vessels, capillaries and everything else. It obviously speeds up the process of not coagulating the blood.
Neil Foley
You're looking for breaks where things wear and tear or tree roots and stuff.
Stewart Howard
Ingress. Route ingress is a big one. I've had various sort of where other utilities companies have come out and they've bored gas pipes through pipe work in the sewers because they've obviously not done their homework. So that's gone straight through or water pipes. So the blue water pipes, you got the yellow gas pipes and blue water pipes where they've gone directly straight through an old drainage system, which obviously just weakens the pipe. And rats will basically chew that pipe so you can get leaks. I've had various jobs where there's been underground leaks for a hell of a long time. It's built up a cavity, so obviously the mud and the dirt and everything else is gone. But you wouldn't know about that unless you put a camera down.
Neil Foley
What sort of cameras do you use?
Stewart Howard
We use basically what's called Max Probe by a company called Scan Probe. We've got 60 metre cable reels or 120 metre cable wheels so we can do some distance.
Neil Foley
It's a two man job?
Stewart Howard
Two man job on the 120 metre because it does take quite a bit to sort of push it and pull it back and things like that.
Neil Foley
It's got a camera on the end.
Stewart Howard
So a camera with basically very bright lights that you can sort of bring up and take down, depending on what sort of pipe work you're in. We've got skid runners and trap jumpers as well, for different types of drains.
Neil Foley
What was that? A skid runner?
Stewart Howard
Skid runners, yeah. So you can go straight down with the head itself, it can scoot along, or you can raise it up slightly by about an inch in a four inch pipe. So we've got four inch skid runners and six inch skid runners, depending on the channel size that you're doing.
Neil Foley
And you have to fit those at the beginning before you put it down…
Stewart Howard
So you would go in from what you would class as your manhole one, your starting point, and then you would then go down, pick your starting point to where your finished node is, which is the end of the run.
Neil Foley
Are you taking video throughout or shots?
Stewart Howard
Its video throughout and at any point throughout that survey, if you found something, whether it would be a misconnection, there's all different classifications for different types of cracks. So you've got longitudinal cracks, you've got circumferential cracks, you got different cracks, misconnections, mis joins, lots of different sort of abbreviations that are used in the industry. So you can pinpoint where the problems are. It's not just problems, obvious problems, it's possible problems in a later date as well. Sometimes you have with new estates and things like that, block paving, you can sometimes see that the block paving that's dropped because heavy lorries have gone over it. Well, they'll compress depending on how deep the drainage channels are, they might compress that pipe.
Neil Foley
So you can see a plastic pipe.
Stewart Howard
All the different plastic pipes upvc and everything else
Neil Foley
And where you find the problem. How do I know where that is? Because that might be 28 meters down the road…
Stewart Howard
On the end of the camera, on all the cameras that we've got, we've got what's called the sond. The sond works on different megahertz, depending on what the depth is and everything else and what the ground is like. But we've got ground locators to find that sond, so we can actually pinpoint where that is.
Neil Foley
So you know where there's a problem and you stop at that point.
Stewart Howard
Twelve metres there's a point. And we would basically mark that up with ground paint on the surface and say, that's where the problem is. So when the ground contractor is coming, they know exactly where that problem is.
Neil Foley
And you're giving me, the customer, a report, right? You wouldn't bother with video, you'd bother with pictures.
Stewart Howard
I guess the pictures normally, I mean, the video helps as well, but otherwise people would get pictures. So the report is on our systems. There's two industry standard basic bits of software on there. One is called Mina, one is called Wincan. Wincan is a bit more in depth than Mina. If it's just a residential job, Mina will do a perfectly good job of giving you all the information that's needed and if you needed to send that to another contractor. But Wincan is a bit more in depth for like waterboard and councils and things like that.
Neil Foley
So let's assume we find a problem. We can see there's, I don't know, a break or something other, which is anything.
Stewart Howard
Right.
Neil Foley
This is the ingress point for the rat. What’s the solution?
Stewart Howard
Lots of different options are open to you depending on where it is. It all depends on the location of where it is, how accessible, because really there's two options for most residential properties, whether that be excavation, so you can dig up in that area. So the pinpointed area that we've marked on the ground will be excavated to find a broken pipe replaced. Yes, it's a big job, but if that's under your kitchen, you're not going to want that dug up and everything else. So the next option, which is not particularly new, but it's got better over time, is what's called CIPP lining. CIPP.
Neil Foley
I should have said at the beginning you’re from south London, I'm sorry about that folks…
Stewart Howard
Estuary English. So CIPP lining is basically a sock that goes into the channel and it's sort of blown air through, reversed, so it's blown inside out and it bonds to the actual liner itself. The sock will bond to the pipe work channel. So if there's a break, or depending on what the break is, if it's a flush break and it's just they're just going in and out and popping out. Works very well for extensions that have been put over drainage. The drains haven't been moved and you might have old kitchen waste and things like that that's not been capped or anything else, which is a direct access into people's kitchens, sometimes into waste ducts into the loft. If it's a collapse, obviously you're going to start going into the realms of excavating regardless.
Neil Foley
Can you see if it's collapsed?
Stewart Howard
It depends. Sometimes what might need to happen is the debris taken out by jetting or, you know, it's all brought back to where the manhole is or the first accessible point, and then you can CIPP line it after that. And it depends on the size of the break and just the amount of damage, because obviously over time it's going to damage again if it's proper collapsing, and it will need a new pipe put in..
Neil Foley
So when would we use non-return valves? I hear you talk a lot about them.
Stewart Howard
Right so non return valves work really well if they are directly accessing loft where they're going up and it's expanding pipe that's concertina the pipe, work very well there if there's absolutely no chance of excavating it and the cost involved in CIPP lining is just too much and it's deemed that it's not a break that's going to cause further issues down the line. A non return valve would work really well because it's an instant stop to the rats.
Neil Foley
It is what it says on the tin. You can go in one way, but not the other…
Stewart Howard
Exactly, so it's just a door.
Neil Foley
And waste can come out to the house.
Stewart Howard
So the rats will leave the loft, leave the kitchen, go out, get the fresher water that's out in the manhole and then when they go back in they can't so the door shut.
Neil Foley
And you have different size depending on.
Stewart Howard
You've got standards, you've got shorts, you've got four inch, you've got six inch, you've got twelves, lots of different sizes, all depending on the size of the actual channel that you're putting in. Easy to fit, very easy to fit. I mean the four inches and the six inches one person with a pole, so basically like an extending pole that attaches to the top, put it down, put it into the, into the pipe, push it in and then literally unscrew it and it's in.
Neil Foley
So do the non return valves go near the manhole covers?
Stewart Howard
Always go there. It's got to be accessible because what's classed there's a bit of furniture that needs to be checked so its not you put it in and forget about it because obviously people use lots of toilet paper. Some people use wet wipes because it says they're flushable when in fact they're not. Something like 300,000 blockages a year, are caused just by wet wipes. Yeah. And when it says they're flushable, they're not…
Neil Foley
And the fat bergs go into mix….
Stewart Howard
With the fat bergs yes, okay.
Neil Foley
And what horror stories have you seen then?
Stewart Howard
Lots collapsed drains, people that just didn't realise there was a drain under their lovely new bathroom, kitchen or really things like this. One guy was adamant that there wasn't a drain under his bathroom because his builders hadn't told him. And they stripped out this bathroom and I said, well, there is quite categorically, I can see it, I can see it. Took him outside, showed him on the camera and said, that is ten metres under your house, and then went in with the sond locator. Well, that's where the head of the camera is and you can see quite clearly that’s a drain but you wouldn't have known because he didn't show on any of his once he'd moved into the property, he didn't show on any of the plans.
Neil Foley
I suppose we don't pay enough attention, do you? When you're moving into a new house, you don't think about that stuff do you….
Stewart Howard
Your’e not going to know. And over time, if it's like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th person that's lived there, things get lost. Don't know the building, the layout, the building changes over time. I mean, nine times out of ten, it's where extensions, because there's a cost involved to move old drainage outside the boundary of the extension. And sometimes all they do is build over it. And really what they should be doing is capping it to stop any access from the drains, but they don't. And it just means that you've just got this void underneath your property that rats will utilise.
Neil Foley
Tough question this, Stewart, but in terms of percentage wise, roughly, of drain surveys, how many times do you find problems?
Stewart Howard
Anything between 25 and 40% of some degree. Not necessarily what you would turn around and say, well, that's a definite break, things like that. Nine times out of ten, you'll see something further up a channel, so, you know, rats have been through, whether it be their droppings and things like that, it's you will see something
Stewart Howard
You see the smearing where they're going. If it's a dry run, you normally see that quite a lot. But it's not just the rodents that you can pick up on. You can pick up on other problems that they probably weren't aware of, that you can then speak to residents or speak to housing associations or councils and say, you need to look at this because this will become a problem. So it's not just we're looking for rodents, we are looking for problems as a whole.
Neil Foley
And to do the job properly. This is quite a time consuming exercise.
Stewart Howard
Very time consuming, yeah. It can take you a while, even….
Neil Foley
On site, as well as off site doing the report.
Stewart Howard
Yes. So the good thing about MENA and Wincan, Wincan is a little bit more in depth. There's an off site part of that that you need to do. You can do an on site report, but depending on how in depth you go, Mena you can do all on site. So while you're there, you can actually do a site plan. You've got your report, it generates it, it connects to your phone, you send it. You can then send us a PDF. It just generates a PDF. It's all got diagrams in there. You've got all your photos, all the photos that you took. So it generates that whilst you're on site, which you can then send to the customer.
Neil Foley
Blimey.
Stewart Howard
Yeah, that's quite come a long way because when I started, you had to take the card out of the camera, put it into a laptop, then put it into a programme called View Line 500 and then build your report.
Neil Foley
But they're not cheap pieces of kit, are they?
Stewart Howard
Not cheap by any means, no.
Neil Foley
There are a few thousand each.
Stewart Howard
They certainly are worth their weight and gold. Really.
Neil Foley
Yeah, and I know we use them a lot.
Stewart Howard
Yeah.
Neil Foley
Well, I really appreciate your time, Stewart. That was really useful. I actually learned a lot.
Stewart Howard
I love talking about drains, what can I say…
Neil Foley
Thanks very much, everybody, and until next time.