Do you know how sewer inspections are done? In this video I'm gonna show you
and we're gonna do it in 10 seconds. Hi I'm Roger Wakefield, LEED AP, The Expert
Plumber. Welcome back to another great video. If you've not been here before and
you want to learn all things plumbing as a homeowner, or a real estate investor, or
a new homebuyer, please hit the subscribe button now and ring the bell so you
don't miss out on anything. The reason sewer inspections can be so
important is if you're a homeowner, sewer leaks can lead to foundation problems
and as we all know foundation problems can be very expensive. So when we're
talking about sewer leaks, you need to think about how old your house is.
Because if your house was built, I'm gonna say before the 80s, maybe even some
into the 80s, you've got cast iron underground.
There's nothing wrong with cast-iron underground, the thing is cast iron has a
life expectancy of 20 to 50 years, above ground. Once you start burying cast iron
and it gets wet, it starts rusting. It's iron pipe, that's exactly what it does.
Cast iron pipe has a coating on it but over time that's slowly gonna
deteriorate and go away. And the moisture, and the oxygen are gonna get to the iron
and it's gonna rust. Whenever we go into jobs and we've got sewer leaks under the
house, normally what we run into is a cast iron pipe that either has channel
rot, where people have poured an acidic drain cleaner into the sewer line and it
literally slowly rots out the bottom of the pipe. The other thing that can be is
just pressure in the house and it can cause pressure on the pipe, and we've
actually seen pipes split right along the top. Why would you want to inspect it?
Because if you'll inspect it before you have a problem, it can possibly save you
a lot of damage. When people realize they have sewer leaks, they've either got
water backing up into their house, or they're trying to sell the house and
a buyer, an educated buyer comes in and wants to do a sewer test. Every realtor
that we work with we always recommend that they tell their buyers; any house
you're buying, do a sewer and water test. The reason being or the reason
why, the last thing you want to do when buying a house is buy a house for
$300,000 and have to spend another sixty thousand dollars just fixing the sewer
lines or the water lines. Don't get me wrong it can happen, I've seen it happen.
The issue that I have with that is, if the real estate agent would have told
their buyer beforehand that would have been the responsibility of the seller.
There's good things about that. You know, even though the house has problems, now
when you buy that house if you've had them redo the sewer, you know that you're
getting a house that you're not gonna have problems. Just because a house has a
sewer leak or even a water leak doesn't mean it's a bad thing, it means you have
an opportunity to get it fixed to make sure you don't have that problem. The two
reasons that people normally get their sewer line inspected are number 1,
preventive maintenance. They want to look at things to make sure they're not
having any major issues that are going to lead to a more costly repair later.
The other thing is when they're buying a house. Costly repairs is the biggest
problem when it comes to taking care of your plumbing system and I understand
that everybody spends money to get a home inspector to come in and look at
the house, they should really invest that money and doing the sewer and water test,
or more money and doing the sewer and water tests. Because what do you think's
more expensive: replacing a ceiling fan that doesn't work or tunneling five or
ten feet under the house to fix the sewer line that is leaking. Think about
it before you buy costly repairs. I get it, nobody wants them and nobody wants to
go looking for them. But what may cost you five thousand now could cost you
fifty thousand later. Which way would you rather go about it? Sewer repairs are, I
mean they're a pain and I get it. But as I've told you age and time can
lead to deterioration of the pipe. The other thing that we run into a lot is
roots. If there's a lead and oakum joint that maybe didn't get enough lead
in it, a lot of times there's rubber gaskets that maybe the plumber ripped it
or tore it or did something. There's a lot of different reasons that happens.
Maybe the house shift didn't pulled something apart but roots get into the
system and roots can get in there and grow and clog up a system they can also
get in here and grow and push a system apart. So the thing to remember though is
those roots also, even though they let the roots in they will also let water
out. Again, this is gonna lead to foundation problems. Sewer repairs, water
repairs under a slab, they're all expensive and I understand that, but to
test a sewer to find out what's wrong with it is really a good idea.
Now when I say test it, you want to take a test ball in there first and fill up
the system to see does it hold water. So that is the first part to me of the
inspection; is it water tight? The second part is I want to run a camera down. I
want to get in there and see as many of the lines as I can to find out are there
any major bellies, are there any roots, are there any breaks that can be seen by
a camera. Now I will tell people this there is a lot of plumbers out there
that carry a camera out to a job and they call that doing a leak test and I
hate to tell you it's not accurate. So if you've got a plumber and he does not put
test balls in, fill up the system and do a proper test, he's robbing you. And I
hate to tell you, but guys there's plumbers out there doing it every day. If
a plumber is doing a leak test with only a camera, he can't always see every leak.
Number one you can't always get that camera in every single bit of pipe, but
also if there's a hairline crack on the top of that pipe it may not show up on
that camera. He may not see it so he may tell you everything's fine, but then a
year or two later you have problems and you've got to pay sixty, seventy
thousand dollars to go through and replace some pipe. I hope that doesn't
happen to you, but it does happen. So even though it's not something you really
want to do, having your sewer lines inspected may be
a good idea. Doing a sewer and water test may be a great idea. If you think you may
have some foundation problems already started and you want to get a grip on it
before it gets too bad contact your plumbing company and ask them if it's
something they do and if they do it right. Thank you for watching I hope you
enjoyed the video. If you did, please give us a thumbs up or even if you didn't let
us know in the comments down below what we can do or what videos we can make
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we'll see you on the next video if you don't get flushed.