Now, here's an interesting development...

A new man has been this morning and checked outside our property, in the 'backing' beyond the back gate, before starting to dig and guess what - The grids out there are backing up! So it could be the main sewer that has a problem after all. Not sure why the first man did not see that but I guess the trace only showed where the blockage was back too rather than where it started.

He is now trying to access the manhole lower down to see if there is an issue there. If so I would assume that the Utility company needs to fix it. Just under 2 years ago, in the bad floods of 2008, the whole system did flood so it is possible that there is a faultthere. still keeping my fingers crossed that excavation may not be required although we have decided to 're-model' the back yard for reasons detailed earlier anyway.

Wish him, and us, luck.

DeG