Pipe Relining FAQs

Pipe relining repairs a damaged pipe from the inside. A resin-saturated liner is inserted through an existing access point and cured in place against the wall of the old pipe, forming a new structural pipe within it, with no trench dug along the pipe's length. See how pipe relining works for the full step-by-step process.

Traditional replacement means excavating along the full length of the damaged pipe, which can mean trenching through a driveway, garden bed or under a slab. Relining works through existing access points, so the ground above generally stays untouched. Which option actually suits your pipe depends on the extent and location of the damage, which is exactly what a CCTV inspection tells us before any recommendation is made.

It depends on your policy and what caused the damage. Most home and landlord insurance covers a sudden event, such as a burst pipe from an isolated incident, but excludes gradual wear, corrosion, tree root intrusion and general ageing, which are the most common reasons a pipe needs relining in the first place. Check your policy's wording on gradual damage and wear-and-tear exclusions, and speak to your insurer directly if you think a specific event caused the fault. A written CCTV inspection report from us can support a claim either way, though we can't tell you what your specific policy will or won't pay out on.

It depends on the pipe's length, diameter, depth, access and how much of the line actually needs relining, so there isn't a single figure that applies to every job. Rather than guess at a number here, our pipe relining cost page walks through exactly what drives the price, so you know what you're being quoted for before you commit to anything.

For most damaged pipes, it's worth comparing relining against full replacement before committing to either. Replacement usually means more disruption and reinstating a driveway, garden bed or floor once the trench is filled back in. Relining works through the existing pipe, so it typically means less mess and a shorter job, provided the pipe is a good candidate for the method. A CCTV inspection tells us which option genuinely fits your pipe, rather than assuming relining is always the answer.

We can't put a specific figure on a pipe we haven't inspected, and any lifespan depends on installation quality and the condition of the host pipe underneath. What we can say is how the method works: a correctly cured CIPP liner bonds to the inside of the existing pipe and forms a continuous, jointless wall, so it isn't prone to the same joint separation or corrosion that ages the original pipe. That's a structural repair, not a temporary patch.

In some council areas it's technically possible with the right permits, but sewer work is regulated for good reason: a mistake underground is expensive to find and worse to fix once it's backfilled. Diagnosing the actual problem needs a CCTV camera, not a guess, and relining specifically isn't a DIY job at all: it needs the liner, the resin and a controlled cure done correctly, or it won't perform as it should. If you're weighing this up because of a blocked drain or a suspected pipe fault, a CCTV inspection is the safer and usually cheaper starting point.