Short answer: A sewer camera inspection starts at the cleanout near the stack, and a high definition camera is run the full length of the line to the city main. The crew is looking for root intrusion, cracked or separated joints, bellies, and collapse. In the inspection below, the line runs cast iron under the house and switches to 6 inch clay tile in the yard, with separation and roots at the joints. No backups had happened yet. The line was a good candidate for lining.
Most homeowners never see the inside of their own sewer line. This is what it looks like. The full inspection runs four and a half minutes, start to finish, on a house in the Duluth area.
Finding the way in
Every inspection starts by locating an access point. Usually that means finding the stack, the vertical waste pipe in the basement, and looking for the cleanout cover near its base.
The cap comes off, the camera goes in. We run a high definition Milwaukee camera, which matters more than it sounds like it should. You are trying to tell a hairline crack from a stain on the pipe wall, on a screen, in a dark pipe full of water.
What the camera is looking for
Four things, in rough order of how often they turn up:
- Root intrusion. Roots find their way in wherever there is a gap, usually at a joint.
- Cracks and separated joints. These are what let the roots in to begin with.
- Bellies. A section that has sagged, so water and solids sit in it instead of flowing through.
- Clogging and collapse. The point where the pipe stops being a pipe.
The goal is not only to find today’s problem. It is to work out the condition of the line and how much service life is left in it, which is what decides whether the answer is cleaning, lining, or replacement.
Worth noting about this particular job: this homeowner had no backups. Nothing had gone wrong yet. That is the best time to look, and it is why the inspection is free.
Cast iron first, then clay
The first stretch, running under the house, is cast iron. It is holding up reasonably well, though the bottom of the pipe has started to deteriorate. That is normal and expected. Cast iron corrodes from the inside along the invert, the bottom of the pipe, where waste water sits against it.
Past the foundation the material changes to clay, and there is a simple tell for it on camera: a joint roughly every two feet. Clay tile was made in short sections, so the joints come at regular, close intervals. Cast iron and PVC run much longer between connections. Count the joints and the material announces itself.
This line is 6 inch clay, which is a good diameter. The problem is not the size. It is that every one of those joints every two feet is a possible opening, and on this line a number of them have separated. Some are worse than others, and a few sections are no longer lined up with each other. Where the joints have opened, roots have found the gap.
A detail worth borrowing
The camera is pushed all the way down the line first, and the recording that matters is made on the way back. Pushing through standing water and debris dirties the lens. Coming back out, the glass is clean and the picture is honest.
If you ever watch an inspection and the footage looks murky the whole way, that is worth asking about.
Why separated joints cause backups
A separated joint rarely blocks a line on its own. What it does is give solids something to catch on.
Toilet paper and waste snag on the lip, a little at a time. That is what the trade calls a soft clog. It builds slowly, it is not dramatic, and then one day the line backs up into the house and it feels like it happened without warning. It did not. It had been forming at that joint for a long time.
The recommendation on this line
This is a strong candidate for sewer lining. The pipe is holding its shape, the camera can travel the full length, and the failures are at the joints rather than in a collapsed section. Those are the conditions where a liner works.
Lining is also the most economical way to restore a line in this condition, and it puts the pipe back in service for another 50 years or more. No trench across the yard, and the joints that let the roots in stop existing, because a lined pipe is one continuous pipe with no joints at all.
If you want to see your own line
A sewer camera inspection is free for homeowners in Duluth and Superior. There is no charge and no obligation, you keep the footage, and you are welcome to take it to another contractor for a second quote.
If your home was built before 1980, or the line has been rootered more than once, or you have never seen inside the pipe, it is worth looking. You can also read more about the pipe materials buried under Northland homes and what each camera finding means.
Call 218-409-6356 to schedule.