Every month, Repipe Solutions Inc performs dozens of sewer camera inspections across the Greater Houston Area. Most of them are routine: some roots here, a little scale there, a homeowner who just wants peace of mind before closing on a home. But every once in a while, we find something that even our most experienced techs haven’t seen before. Last month we inspected 75 homes. Here is the rundown, and the one that made us stop the truck.
What We Found in 75 Houston Sewer Lines
- 41 lines had moderate to severe tree root intrusion.
- 28 lines had scale buildup significant enough to recommend hydro jetting.
- 19 lines had at least one cracked joint or offset connection.
- 14 lines had back-pitched sections causing standing water.
- 9 lines had active leaks into surrounding soil.
- 6 lines had completely collapsed sections.
- 3 lines had a “belly” or sag where sewage pools indefinitely.
- 2 lines had foreign objects lodged in the pipe — one child’s toy car, one broken pipe cleaner tool abandoned by a previous contractor.
Then There Was House Number 23 in Pearland
The homeowner called us because of slow drains throughout the house. Standard complaint, nothing unusual. Our tech ran the sewer camera inspection down the main line. At 34 feet, the camera bumped into something solid. He backed up, adjusted, and pushed forward — and the screen filled with what looked like braided wire. It was the sewer line wrapped in what we eventually identified as old copper grounding cable that had been abandoned beneath the yard decades earlier. The cable had wrapped itself around the pipe so tightly that it had slowly crushed the line into an oval shape over 30 years. The homeowner had no idea the cable even existed.
We replaced the affected section with trenchless pipe bursting in a single afternoon. The homeowner saved roughly $12,000 versus full excavation and kept her entire backyard patio intact.
The Lesson
You cannot predict what’s under your yard. If you’re experiencing slow drains, frequent backups, or unexplained sewage smells, schedule a sewer camera inspection before assumptions become expensive problems. Repipe Solutions Inc offers sewer camera inspections anywhere in the Greater Houston Area. Call today at 832-662-4288 and see what’s really going on beneath your grass.
A Note on Home Purchases
If you’re buying a home in Houston that was built before 2000, a pre-purchase sewer camera inspection is one of the smartest $200 to $400 you will ever spend. Standard home inspectors do NOT run sewer cameras. We’ve found tens of thousands of dollars in hidden sewer damage on homes that had “passed” their inspection days earlier. Don’t close on a house without knowing what’s under it.