Home › Camera survey

What a Camera Survey Should Show You

In short

The recording is the deliverable, not the verdict. Ask for a copy before the work is booked: it carries the distance markings that make a fault at 40 feet a different job from the same fault at 8, and it lets a second contractor quote without paying for a second survey.

TrenchPoint is a referral service, not a contractor. We connect homeowners with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands. Every state page sets out who licenses plumbers there and where to check, so you can confirm before work begins. We do not perform excavation or repair, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call.

A camera survey is the only way to know what a lateral is doing, and it is also the point at which a homeowner is most likely to be handed a conclusion without the evidence.

Ask for the recording, not the verdict

The recording is the deliverable. Ask for a copy before the work is booked, not after. It is the only thing that lets you take a quote to a second contractor without paying for a second survey, and a contractor confident in their diagnosis has no reason to withhold it.

What should be on it

Distance markings. A fault at 40 feet is a different job from the same fault at 8 feet, and the difference is most of the price.
The whole run, to the main or to the property line. A survey that stops at the first fault has not ruled out a second one.
Standing water, or its absence. Water sitting in a level run is the clearest sign of a belly.
The pipe itself, identified. Clay, iron, fiber and plastic look nothing alike on camera, and material drives everything that follows.

What the survey is looking for, by material

Clay. On a clay lateral the survey is looking for root mass at the joints and for lengths that have dropped out of line. Roots at one or two joints can often be cut back and the run lined; a section that has parted usually cannot.

Bituminized fiber. On a lateral of this age the first thing a survey settles is whether the pipe still has a round section. Bituminized fiber that has gone oval cannot be cleared back to working order, because there is nothing blocking it — the pipe itself is the restriction.

Cast iron. On cast iron the survey is looking at the bottom of the pipe. Corrosion channels along the invert and leaves scale that catches everything passing, so what looks like a blockage is often lost bore.

Plastic. On a plastic lateral the material is rarely the answer, so the survey is really measuring fall. A belly holds water, a flat section drops solids, and both show on the recording as standing water where there should be none.

What a survey cannot settle

Depth, and what is on top of the pipe. A camera shows the inside of the run; it does not tell you whether the fault sits under a driveway, a mature tree or a public sidewalk. That is a separate question and it changes the price more than the fault does — see what the surface looks like afterwards.

Get the run looked at

Tell us your ZIP code and what the drain is doing. We check it against partner coverage and put you through to an independent contractor who works that area. We do not do the work and you are never charged.

Call (866) 857-3202

Before anybody excavates.A camera survey is a different instruction from a repair, and the order matters. Tell us what the drain is doing and we will route you to somebody who covers your area. No charge to you, ever. Anything else the plumbing is doing can be raised on that call too.

Call (866) 857-3202