Most folks take our drainage for granted; often we assume any issue that arises would be the responsibility of the water supplier. However though, generally speaking, you're usually responsible for drains inside the boundaries of one's property, as the sewerage company is in charge of lateral drains, which are outside of property boundaries, and sewers. Although most sewers are actually publicly owned, there are still some private or unadopted sewers. If your property is served by one of these, you may be in charge of maintaining it.
So when there is an issue with the drain within your property boundaries then it really is your responsibility, and they, unfortunately, do block up for a range of reasons.
Some signs that will help identify a draining issue include:
1. If your toilet, shower, bath or sinks are draining slowly that is likely an issue with the drain itself. Independent drainage issues will undoubtedly be a concern with the fixture itself. The toilet is often the primary driver for a blockage - if flushing the bathroom . causes water to rise in the shower, or running taps causes the water in the bathroom . to rise, then there is a blocked drain on your hands.
2. Foul smells certainly are a dead giveaway for a blockage, if something has blocked the drain and begun to rot, you'll certainly find out about it.
3. Finally gurgling noises from pipes, drains and plug holes are warning signs of a potential blockage. That is created once the air is trapped in the pipes and waste water displacing it.
Typically the 2 biggest causes of drain issues will be grease/fat build up and tree root ingress. Fat build-up is a large cause for blockage in the national sewer system and it'll affect homes too. When you wash your plates or simply pour fat down the sink, the warm liquidated fat will hit the cold outside water in the drains then solidify, over a period of time this will build-up causing a blockage.
Root ingress is harder to avoid, and probably the biggest cause for blockages in homes. Click here for more info can be extremely serious and a large reason behind subsidence related problems. Older clay pipes are particularly susceptible to root ingress because they are joined with just sand & cement these joints offer little resistance to fine tree roots which once inside develop into tap roots and root masses which in turn reduce the internal bore of the pipe.