Lanes finds a hot rod on the road to nowhere – parked in a drain

Lanes Utilities drainage engineers have recovered a hot rod car that took the wrong turn and caused a major go slow in a sewer.

The toy car had not been burning rubber but blocking the 150mmm diameter drain underneath a house in Tottenham, North London.

But with a lot of persistence and ingenuity, Drain Blockage Engineer Leigh Lawrence, supported by Field Manager Alan Fairbairn cleared the drain jam and got the water flowing freely once more.

The Lanes Utilities engineers were assigned to resolve the drain blockage problem on behalf of Thames Water.

Leigh explained: “The drain blockage was under the front of a terraced house, behind a water trap in a sewer.

“A lot of grease and wipes, what we call rag ball, had built up.  We jetted away as much as we could, then put our CCTV camera down, and saw this hot rod car wedged in the pipe.”

What they also saw was a number of drainage rods, which a member of the public appeared to have used to try to clear the blockage.

Leigh said: “The rods had come stuck and made the blockage worse. It made it a very tricky problem.”

Working from the back of the house, the Lanes team used their own rod system, which a grab at the end, to try to get hold of the rods to pull them back. But that did not work.

After more than two hours, as a last resort, they guided down a rod with a screw fixing at the end – and managed to screw it onto the trapped rods.

With Leigh and Alan pulling together, they were finally able to yank the three rods free – and a big ball of grease and wet wipes came with them.

Stuck in the middle of the ball of goo was the hot rod car.

Alan Fairbairn said: “It was one big sticky mass, all congealed together. We were very lucky it worked, because we were running out of options.

“The only alternative appeared to be to excavate the sewer. With the blockage under the front of the house and only a few feet of the road, it would have been a major operation.”

Leigh believes the toy may have fallen down a shaft in the front garden, which led to the water trap: “Then, the drain rods becoming stuck, allowing the grease and rag ball to build up.”

A case of bad parking, brought to an end by the Lanes tow away team.