What is a sewer camera inspection?
A flexible camera on a push-cable goes down your cleanout or through a fixture drain and travels the length of the sewer lateral — from the house to the street connection or septic tank. It records live video as it goes. A locator wand on the surface reads a signal from a sonde in the camera head, so we can mark the exact depth and location of a problem on your lawn or driveway without guessing.
When do you need one?
Most people call because a drain keeps backing up after cleaning, or because it backs up in the same spot every time it rains hard. Others call before buying an older house, before a kitchen or bathroom remodel that ties into an old line, or because a drain cleaning visit hit something a cable couldn't push through. If water is actively backing up into the house, that's an emergency plumbing call first — the camera comes after the immediate backup is cleared.
Other common reasons:
- Slow drains in more than one fixture at once, which usually points to the main line, not a single trap
- Gurgling toilets or sewer smell in the yard
- A sale or purchase where the seller or buyer wants to know the condition of the line before closing
- Planning a repipe or an addition and needing to know the existing line's route and condition first
How does the visit go?
We access the line through an existing cleanout where there is one, or through a fixture like a toilet flange if there isn't. The camera feeds through slowly enough to see joints, transitions in pipe material, and anything sitting in the line — roots, grease, scale, or standing water that signals a low spot. We narrate what we're seeing as we go and mark distances off the built-in counter. If you want the exact dig location, we run the locator over the marked spot and flag or paint the surface.
You get a plain explanation of what's in the line, not a stack of jargon. If the line is clear and the backup was something else, we say so. If there's a defect, we talk through what fixing it actually involves before any digging starts.
What affects the scope of the work?
A few things change what the inspection finds and what happens next:
- Pipe material. Clay tile, cast iron, Orangeburg (a paper-and-tar pipe common in mid-century Portland construction), and PVC all show different failure patterns on camera — clay cracks and separates at joints, Orangeburg deforms and collapses, cast iron scales and narrows from the inside.
- Access. A house with an existing exterior cleanout is a straightforward run. A house without one, which is common in older Portland neighborhoods, may need an access point cut in before the camera can go the full distance.
- Line length and depth. Longer runs to the street, or lines set deep to clear a basement, take more time to scope fully.
- What the camera finds. A root intrusion that a cutting head can clear is a different job than an offset joint or a bellied section that needs excavation or lining.
- Whether hydro jetting is needed first. Heavy grease, scale, or a root mass sometimes has to be cleared with hydro jetting before the camera can see past it.
What's specific to Portland's sewer lines?
A lot of Portland's housing stock — the bungalows and foursquares in inner Southeast and Northeast, the postwar ranches further out toward Gresham and Beaverton — was built with clay or Orangeburg laterals that are now 60 to 100 years old. Big street trees, especially the maples and oaks Portland is known for, send roots straight into the smallest crack or joint gap looking for water, which is the single most common thing we find on camera here.
The wet season adds to it. From roughly October through April, saturated soil shifts clay pipe joints and raises groundwater, which pushes into any crack in the line and can turn a small root intrusion into a backup overnight. That's also when tree roots are most actively growing toward moisture. A line that drains fine in August can back up in November for the same underlying reason.
Before any digging in a Portland yard or parking strip, a utility locate is required, and knowing exactly where the private sewer lateral runs — separate from the public locate — is what the camera and sonde are for.
Why Sheltons Construction?
We're a licensed Oregon plumbing contractor working Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties. A camera inspection is diagnostic work, and we treat it that way — we're not scoping your line to sell you the most expensive fix. You see what we see, we mark what needs marking, and if the answer is a cable and a jetter instead of a dig, that's what we tell you.
What to do now
If a drain keeps coming back after cleaning, or you're buying a house with an older line, get it on camera before you spend more money guessing. Contact Sheltons Construction to set up an inspection, or check the FAQ for more on how we work. We serve Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, and Tigard, along with the rest of the Portland metro.