2245 Drain Expert

Yellow Pages is full of useful information in our area. It might be under acqua nero. Many companies seem to have video cameras they send into drains (or up chimneys for that matter). Suggest you could start there. I know you can consult it online too.

Good Luck.

if you have a problem with your drains it could be any number of things, depending on whether you are not connected to mains drains or if you have a sceptic tank. I dont know what the rules and regulations are in Italy but i had a place in the country in France which i did the drains and plumbing on and i would say that there could be a number of commonsense reasons for the smelly drains. A blocked pipe somewhere, a cracked pipe somewhere maybe, or a leaky joint, or if you have your own sceptic tank, then maybe all you need to do is put some bacteria in it by flushing some down the loo. You can get this at any do-it-yourself place. The idea being that the bacteria feeds off the sewage in the tank and in this way removes the smell. It might take a bit of time for the bacteria to work if this is the case so you would have to wait a bit to see if this is the cause. The only way i can see, other than bringing in an expert, would be to try to work by the process of elimination. You can probably also buy pipe cleaners which you can push down into the drain openings

Thanks to all who have been kind enough to reply. Got a number from Yellow Pages, Acqadotto. Gave them a call and they said someone would be with us in half an hour ( miracle or what ? for Italy). He arrived after two hours ( still a miracle). He could not help as his only concern was for the main drain outside our property. He did however unofficially look down our private drains and was visibly gob smacked at the appalling workmanship.
Italian drains are sort of white plastic boxes, holes had been badly cut into these with large gaps around the edges. There is no way anything was going to flow through, as the boxes were deep and the plastic tubes were about six inches above these. Therefore everything remained in the bottom of the white boxes. (This is a newly built house by the way.) We called the builder, who is addressed as " engineeri " by his workmen, and he said everything was fine and my cleaner must have thrown a cleaning cloth down there. ( Funny, I do not have a cleaner). I then took him inside and my husband and I proceeded to tell him how to make everything flow better.Just copied the outlay of a UK drain. The workmen have just finished, and my newly designer drains are drying out. Incidently the workmen were very proud of the work they did today, and I am certain all will go well drain wise from now on.I will keep you posted.

Congratulations. Hope all is well when finished. Amazing how completely disinterested parties will often give very useful advice. We have found the Acquadotto workers really very willing to advise quite generally - especially when our contatore freezes.