How we research, write and correct this site

Phase 1 is written for UK homebuyers who need to understand a possible drain survey, compare scopes and prepare a contractor brief. It is not written to sell a participating provider, generate repair demand or replace a surveyor, solicitor, drainage engineer, contractor, lender, insurer, authority or water company.

1. Official sources: legislation, government guidance, regulators and water or sewerage companies for responsibility, jurisdiction and formal processes.
2. Professional sources: bodies such as RICS for the stated scope of professional products and standards.
3. First-party provider pages: for what that provider publicly offers, how it labels the scope and what price it displays.
4. Reputable consumer guides: as supporting market context, always distinguished from a provider quote.
5. Forums and search snippets: useful for discovering questions, but not sufficient evidence for a recommendation or price.

A source earns weight only for the claim it can support. A professional guide to home surveys does not establish a contractor’s price; a provider price page does not establish national responsibility rules.

1. Assign one search intent and one useful outcome to the page.
2. List every material factual and commercial claim.
3. Attach the strongest available source and its jurisdiction.
4. Remove or qualify claims the evidence cannot support.
5. Check internal links, limitations, dates, title, heading and canonical.
6. Require human editorial and visual approval before production publication.

This approach is consistent with Google’s emphasis on helpful, reliable, people-first content and clear sourcing. Search-engine guidance shapes presentation, not our drainage conclusions. Read the Google Search Central guidance (opens in a new tab).

Automated tools may help with research organisation, drafting, consistency checks, accessibility checks and broken-link detection. They are not accepted as the source of a drainage fact or professional judgment. No page is published merely because a model produced it.

The public selector uses reviewed, versioned, deterministic rules. It does not ask a language model to diagnose drainage or interpret a report. Material wording and rule changes require tests and human review.

Price observations retain their publisher, URL, review date, scope, VAT basis and known gaps. Mixed scopes stay separate. We do not claim a UK average, local price or “typical” total unless the underlying sample and comparison method can defend that claim.

The current method and candidate dataset are public on our price methodology page. Scheduled checks may flag stale evidence, but only a reviewed code change can alter published content.

• No provider has paid for inclusion in Phase 1.
• No provider is described as participating or locally verified.
• No quote requests or property enquiries are routed.
• No review score, accreditation or testimonial is fabricated.
• If a later commercial relationship exists, it must be disclosed at the relevant placement and approved as a separate phase.

Each guide shows a publication date and the date its evidence was last reviewed. Public price sources receive a monthly freshness review; other content is reviewed when an authoritative source changes or a material correction is raised.

To report an issue, use the editorial contact and include the page, disputed statement and best available source. Do not include a property address, full postcode, telephone number or quote request. Material corrections are recorded in repository history.