Sewer, Storm Drain & Culvert: Inspection & Testing:

CCTV Sewer inspections are an intricate part of evaluating your pipes’ overall condition and performance. Empipe has a full range of the latest CCTV equipment capable of inspecting pipes of all diameters. Empipe uses NAAPI-certified operators and software to ensure your CCTV inspections are completed accurately.

The time to find out if a sewer is faulty or needs replacement is before buying a home, not after.

Why Inspect the Sewer Line?
Obtain a sewer inspection if the home is older than 20 years. Although the sewer line may be fairly new, tree roots can still clog up a 20-year-old sewer line.

Tree roots growing into sewer lines is a common problem. Roots crawl into tiny openings and expand in the sewer line, latching on to other debris which causes backups. Sometimes chemicals can kill the tree’s roots, but if the roots reappear, the pipe may be damaged and require excavation to fix the problem.

Homes that were constructed prior to city sewers often relied on cesspools. After cities installed public septic systems, sometimes the cesspools were left intact and connected to the sewer line. You won’t know unless you inspect the sewer.

Many homes built from the 1860’s to the 1970’s have sewer lines made from pitch fiber or tar paper called ‘black pipe’ or Orangeburg pipes. These disintegrate and collapse over time. It has been taken off the list of acceptable materials by most building codes. If a home has fiber piping, the sewer line definitely needs to be replaced.

How to Inspect a Sewer Line
We insert a ‘snake’ attached to a small CCTV video camera into the clean-out and feed the camera through your sewer. You can watch the image on a monitor. Not only will we find out if the sewer line is clean or clogged, but the inspection will disclose the condition of the sewer. We can tell you what kind of material was used to construct the sewer line and whether that type of material is considered up to code.

It might cost anywhere from $85 to $300 to have the sewer line inspected, but considering the cost to replace a sewer line, it’s money well spent.

Should you require a new sewer line, we can use the trenchless method, which involves pulling a new sewer line through the existing sewer without the need to dig. Trenchless sewers cost almost one-third less than digging up the entire yard and replacing the sewer.