Blocked Drain on a Bank Holiday or at Christmas: What to Do

If your drain blocks on a bank holiday or over Christmas, call out now only if sewage is coming up inside, the only toilet in the property is out of action, or water is heading into the building. Anything less can usually wait until the next working day, when your landlord, managing agent or the water company may deal with it at no cost to you. The rest of this page covers who is still open, how our pricing applies, and what to do in the meantime.

Is it worth calling out on a bank holiday?

Yes, if the blockage stops you living in the property safely. No, if it is an inconvenience you can work around until the next working day. The test is the same as any other day; the difference is how long you would be waiting.

Call out now if:

• Foul water is rising through a ground-floor WC, shower tray or floor gully, or has already come inside.
• You have one toilet and it will not flush away, especially with guests staying or young children in the house.
• A manhole or gully has overflowed and is running towards a door, air brick or lightwell.
• A commercial kitchen or premises cannot trade over the holiday because the drain is blocked.

It can usually wait if a single sink or basin is slow, a second bathroom is out of action but another one works, or an outside gully is holding water with nothing backing up indoors. A four-day Easter weekend changes that calculation more than a single Monday does. Our guide on whether a blocked drain is an emergency goes through the edge cases.

Who is open and who is not

The water company runs its sewer flooding line around the clock, bank holidays included. Most managing agents, letting agents and council offices do not, so if the drain is not yours to fix you may be waiting until the next working day for anyone else to take responsibility.

• Thames Water (or your local water company) handles public sewers and shared drains outside your boundary. If neighbours are backing up too, report it to them first; a blocked public sewer is not yours to pay for.
• Landlords are responsible for the drains in most rented homes. Use the emergency contact in your tenancy agreement. If nobody answers and sewage is coming inside, arranging an urgent clearance yourself is reasonable, but keep the receipt, photos and a record of your attempts to reach them.
• Managing agents and freeholders usually control shared drains in blocks of flats, and often the keys to the chamber. Many have an out-of-hours number. If they do not answer, access to a locked bin store or basement is often the thing that slows a holiday job down most.
• Councils deal with road gullies and highway drainage. Their emergency lines exist for flooding on the highway, not blocked household drains.

If you are unsure whose drain it is, the usual rule is that a pipe serving only your property and inside your boundary is yours, and anything shared beyond the boundary belongs to the water company.

How our pricing works on a bank holiday

Our rates run in three published time bands set by the clock: 7am to 5pm, 5pm to midnight, and midnight to 7am. The band that applies to your visit, and the price, are confirmed on the phone before we dispatch, and there is no weekend multiplier added on top.

That means the cheapest bank holiday call-out is usually a daytime one. If a blockage starts on Christmas Eve evening and you have another working toilet, waiting until the morning moves the job into the standard band for the same work. We will say so if it applies. Current figures are on our pricing page, and what changes between the day, evening and night bands is explained in detail separately.

What the engineer can do on the day is the same as any other day. What can be harder over a holiday is anything that depends on someone else: getting into a locked communal chamber, or disposing of tankered waste while licensed sites are shut. If a job needs a follow-up repair, that is quoted separately and can be booked for a working day.

Why drains block over Christmas and long weekends

More people, more cooking and more flushing, all at once. Holiday blockages are rarely bad luck; they are usually the drain being asked to carry more fat and paper than it normally does.

• Cooking fat. Roast fat and gravy poured down the sink look liquid when hot and set solid in a cold drain. Over a few days of big meals, the build-up narrows the pipe until it closes. The same process on a larger scale is how fatbergs form.
• Wipes and extra paper. Guests who do not know the house flush things the regulars know not to. Wet wipes do not break down, whatever the packet says.
• One toilet, many people. A toilet and drain that cope with a household of three can struggle with eight people over a weekend, particularly if the run already has a weakness.
• Cold weather. Fat sets faster in cold pipes, and external runs close to the surface are coldest.

Scraping plates into the bin, pouring cooled fat into a container, and putting a bin by every toilet prevents most of this.

What to do while you wait

Stop the water, keep the mess contained, and do not make the blockage harder to clear. Most of the damage in a drain emergency is done by what gets flushed after the problem starts.

• Stop using taps, toilets and appliances on the affected drain. Turn off the dishwasher and washing machine mid-cycle if you need to; a pump-out goes straight into the blocked pipe.
• Do not pour chemical drain unblocker into a drain that is fully blocked. It sits in the pipe, does not reach the blockage, and makes the water dangerous for the engineer to work in. Tell us if you have already used some.
• Do not keep plunging a toilet that is rising rather than draining. If the pan fills when other appliances are used, the blockage is further down the drain and plunging will not reach it.
• Find the inspection chamber and make sure it is not under a parked car, a pile of logs or a locked gate. If it is in a communal area, find out who has the key.
• Keep people away from any foul water, and ventilate the room.