Camera inspection · Selah & Yakima
Sewer camera inspection before you dig or remodel
A camera on a push cable through the cleanout, recorded end to end, so you see the root, crack, sag or blockage before anyone digs or remodels.
Chapter 01
Push the camera through the cleanout and watch the pipe
The first thing we do is look for a way in: an accessible cleanout, or any other point of entry into the sewer line. The camera rides on a flexible cable, and the crew pushes it through that opening and records its journey down the line. What you get is a recording of the inside of a pipe that nobody has seen since it was buried.
Watching the feed, the plumber is looking for roots, cracks, leaks, joints that have slipped out of line, and the plug itself. Some people call this drain scoping. Whatever the name, it replaces guessing with a picture, and it tells us where along the line the trouble sits so a dig, if there is one, is as small as it can be.
A new sewer cleanout riser set in gravel in an excavated pit
Before a remodel or a bathroom addition
A new bathroom or a bigger kitchen puts more wastewater into the same sewer line, and an older line that was laid for a smaller house may not take it. The time to find out is before the tile is ordered. A recorded run through the line shows whether it is sound, whether roots are already in it, and whether a section needs attention first.
It is also the right call when a blockage will not clear. If a plunger, an auger and a bottle of drain cleaner have all failed, the camera tells you what the plug is and where. If you are planning the remodel itself, our plumbers work from rough-in to fixtures, and the repairs, remodels and repipes page lays out what that covers.
Chapter 03
What the video shows, and what happens next
Before the camera goes in, we check whether the line is still draining. If it is not, the hydro jet goes first, to clear the build-up and make room for the equipment, and then the camera follows. Once the line is moving, the recording runs end to end and we stop it wherever something needs a second look.
From there the choices are plain. A root or a plug gets cut or jetted out. A broken or collapsed section gets dug and replaced with our own excavators, with a new cleanout set so the line can be reached again. And if a buried line has to be found first, the pipe and septic locating page covers that. You decide with the footage in front of you.
Licensed and insured, WA BURKEP*795N5. Open 24 hours, 7 days: (509) 697-6574.
What we found, what we left
When the camera finds a broken line, this is the next page of the job
Two of our own photographs from an excavated sewer job. The pit is dug to the line, a new cleanout riser is set in gravel, and the next camera run starts from there.
A licensed journeyman since 1973, Dick Burke started the family business in Selah in December 1981, and a camera now does what used to be guesswork. If the video points to a dig, read about sewer replacement, or start with hydro jetting if the line only needs clearing.