How to run a sewer camera inspection

1. Before the camera goes in

Pick the door. A cleanout is the right way in — an outside two-way cleanout near the foundation, or the main cleanout in the basement or crawlspace. With no cleanout, pulling a toilet gets you into the line at the flange. The roof vent is the last resort: it adds the whole stack to the run and drops the head into the building drain from a height.

Ask what has been happening. Which fixtures back up, how often, since when, and what has been done before — a lined section or a replaced length changes what you should expect to see and where.

If the line is backed up, clear it first. A camera in a surcharged line shows you sewage, not pipe. Then say in the report that the line was cleared before the inspection: roots that a cable has just cut back look far smaller than they were.

Run a little water. A trickle lets the head slide and does a second job — water that pools and stays put marks a sag you might otherwise drive straight through.

2. Zero the counter at the opening

Every finding in the report is a distance from where the camera went in. Set the footage counter to zero with the head at the cleanout opening, and write down which opening. "Roots at 22 ft" is useless on a house with two cleanouts; "roots at 22 ft from the front exterior cleanout" is a place someone can dig.

3. Push steadily, and stop at every joint

1. Steady, not fastA slow, even push keeps the picture readable and the head off the pipe wall. Never force the head through an obstruction — that is how cables kink and heads break.
2. Stop at each jointJoints are where roots get in and where sections slip out of line. Clay and cast iron come in short lengths, so an old clay lateral has a lot of them. Look at every one.
3. Note the material, and where it changesCast iron to clay, clay to PVC, a length of Orangeburg — the transitions are joints between unlike materials, and they fail more often than a run of the same pipe.
4. Mark where the water starts and stopsStanding water is a belly. Its length is the footage where the water begins to where it ends — write both down, not just the deepest point.
5. Say where around the pipeGive each finding a clock position, looking downstream: roots at 12 o'clock, a crack from 3 to 5. It is the convention in the industry's coding standards, and it tells the repair crew which side to look at.
6. If it will not pass, stopRecord the footage of the obstruction and that the line beyond it was not inspected. A report that is honest about where the camera stopped is worth more than one that implies it saw the whole line.

4. Find it from above

Most inspection cameras carry a sonde — a small transmitter in or behind the head, often at 512 Hz. With the head parked at a finding, a locator on the surface finds the signal and reads its depth. Mark the spot with paint or a flag and note the depth next to the footage.

That is what turns "a break at 63 ft" into a mark on the lawn and a depth for the excavator. Locate every finding that will need digging, and the point where the line crosses the property line if the repair might be the city's.

5. Where the run ends

A lateral inspection normally ends at the city main — at the tap where the house line joins it — or as far as the camera could get. Note the footage to the main and whether you reached it. If you stopped short, say why: a blockage, the end of the cable, a trap the head would not climb.

Who owns which part of the lateral depends on the city: some make the owner responsible all the way to the main, some only to the property line or the curb. Do not guess at that in the report. Say what you saw and where; the homeowner can take the footage and the locate marks to the city.

6. Writing it up so it gets read

A homeowner reads the first line, the colour and the photos. So the report has to carry, for one run:

• the address, the access point and where the counter was zeroed;
• the pipe materials along the way;
• each finding with its footage, its clock position, a photo taken off the monitor, a severity and your recommendation in plain words;
• where the run ended, and why there if it was short of the main;
• one headline grade — the single worst finding, never an average. A line with three minor notes and one collapse is a collapse.

Keep the video. Buyers, sellers and the next plumber ask for it.

Be clear what kind of report it is. The industry's standard for coding what the camera sees is NASSCO's PACP for main lines and LACP for laterals, and a coded, graded PACP or LACP report comes from a certified operator. A plumber's homeowner report is a different, useful thing — it is not a NASSCO/PACP certified condition assessment, and before any dig the homeowner should get independent confirmation of the recommended repair. Say so on the report.

For homeowners: what a sewer scope is, and is not

A sewer scope is the run described above: a camera pushed through the line from the house towards the city main, recorded, and written up. It shows the inside of the pipe — roots, cracks, sags, separated joints, a collapse, the material it is made of.

It does not test the pipe under pressure, it cannot see the outside of the pipe or the soil around it, and it only covers the line the camera actually entered — not branch lines it did not go down. A clean scope today also says nothing about roots next spring. That is why a good report states where the camera went and where it stopped.

It is most worth doing before you buy an older house, a house with big trees between it and the street, or one with clay or Orangeburg pipe — the lines where the expensive surprises live.

The same run, written up on site

DrainReport is built for step 6. Photograph the monitor — no cables, no capture card — pin each finding at its footage, pick the defect and the severity, and it writes the plain-English explanation and a recommendation you can rewrite. The homeowner gets one PDF with your company on top, the footage strip, every finding with its photo, and the disclaimer that keeps the scope honest.

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