Sewer camera inspection for Salem homes and buyers

Most sewer trouble in Salem starts out of sight, under a lawn or a driveway, in a pipe that may be as old as the house. A camera is the only way to see it without digging. We record the full run, from the cleanout or house drain out to the connection at the street, and talk you through each joint as it rolls by on the monitor.

The point of the video is a decision. Some lines just need roots cut and a follow-up look in a year or two. Others show a crushed section, a sag or a failing joint that needs real repair. You get the recording, a plain written summary, and a mark on the ground, so any repair plan starts from facts instead of guesses.

How the camera head and locator pin down a problem

The camera rides on a stiff fiberglass push rod coiled on a reel, with a counter that reads footage as the head moves. Built into the head is a small transmitter called a sonde. When we stop at a defect, a handheld locator above ground picks up the sonde signal, finds the spot directly overhead, and estimates depth from the strength of the signal. We paint or flag that spot, so a repair crew digs one hole instead of several.

Reading the footage: bellies, offsets, roots and collapse

Each defect looks different on the screen. A belly is a low spot where the pipe has settled, and the camera dips into standing water that never drains away. An offset joint shows as a ledge where one section has shifted up or sideways from the next. Roots appear as hairlike strands or a solid mat pushing through a joint. Orangeburg, a tar-and-wood-fiber pipe laid in many postwar homes, sags into an oval and blisters before it collapses.

• Cracks running lengthwise along clay pipe walls
• Cast-iron scale and a rotted-out bottom channel
• Grease rings narrowing the pipe near the kitchen branch
• Separated joints with soil showing through the gap

Pre-purchase sewer scopes for Salem home buyers

A standard home inspection usually stops at the drains you can see, so the sewer lateral gets missed. A pre-purchase sewer scope fills that gap. We run the camera during the inspection window, record the full line, and give the buyer a copy of the video and a short summary to share with the agent and seller. If the line needs work, you know before closing, which leaves room to ask for a repair or a price adjustment.

We push hardest for a scope on older homes in Grant, Highland, Fairmount Hill and around Bush's Pasture Park, where clay and concrete laterals from that era often show root intrusion at the joints by now. We need the seller's permission and an accessible cleanout or a toilet we can pull.

What we need to get the camera into your line

The easiest entry is a cleanout, a capped pipe near the foundation or in the crawlspace. Without one, we can pull a toilet and go in through the closet flange, or work from a roof vent on a single-story house. A badly clogged line has to be opened first, because the lens cannot see through standing sewage, so we clear it with a cable machine and scope it on the same visit.

• Clear a path to the cleanout or crawlspace hatch
• Hold off on running water while the camera is in
• Tell us about past backups and any earlier digging
• Pull out old plans or permits if you have them