Because we use the camera to diagnose rather than to sell. An inspection should end with you seeing footage of your own pipe and understanding what it shows — including when the answer is that the line is fine.

What a Camera Inspection Actually Shows

A flexible camera is fed through your sewer lateral, transmitting video as it travels. It reveals things no other method can.

Root intrusion. Roots enter at joints and cracks, then grow into a mass that catches everything passing by. You see exactly where and how bad.

Bellies. A section that has sagged so water stands in it rather than flowing through. These cause chronic recurring clogs and no amount of cabling fixes them, because the problem is the pipe’s grade rather than a blockage.

Offset joints. Sections that have shifted, leaving a lip that catches debris.

Cracks, corrosion, and scale. Cast iron in older Hill Country properties corrodes and scales from the inside, progressively narrowing the pipe.

Collapse. A section that has failed structurally, which changes the repair entirely.

Why It Should Come Before the Quote

Here is the practical argument. A drain that will not clear could be any of the above, and they are indistinguishable from the fixture.

Soft blockage is a straightforward drain cleaning. Grease or scale coating the pipe wall calls for hydrojetting. Root intrusion at a clay joint is a repair. A belly requires re-grading a section. A collapse means replacement.

Quoting a repair without looking means guessing at which of five problems you have. Sometimes the guess is right. Often it means paying for the wrong repair and then paying again.

Locating, Not Just Looking

Our cameras carry a transmitting sonde, and we use a locator above ground to mark the exact position and depth of a problem.

That matters enormously for cost. Knowing a root intrusion sits eighteen feet out at four feet deep — rather than somewhere in a sixty-foot run — is the difference between a targeted repair and trenching the whole yard.

In Hill Country soil, where excavation hits rock and costs climb accordingly, precise location saves real money.

You See the Footage

You watch the screen during the inspection, and you get the recording. Not a verbal description of what we found — the actual video.

This is the honest protection against being sold a sewer replacement you did not need, which is a genuine problem in this trade. If someone recommends major work without showing you why, that is worth a second opinion.

When We Recommend One

Before buying a home, particularly anything older with mature trees. This is the single highest-value inspection in a real estate transaction and it is not part of a standard home inspection.

After a second clog in the same line. One clog is a clog; two is a condition.

Before any significant sewer work, so the repair matches the actual problem.

When multiple fixtures back up simultaneously, which points to the main line rather than a branch.

And after a backup, to confirm the line is genuinely clear rather than temporarily flowing.

What We Will Tell You Honestly

Sometimes the camera shows a line in good condition and a simple blockage. We say that, and the visit ends with a cleaning rather than a proposal.

Sometimes it shows a problem that is real but not urgent — minor root intrusion worth monitoring rather than repairing today. We say that too.

Nearly Four Decades of Context

Since 1986 we have inspected enough Hill Country laterals to know what is normal for the local building stock and what is not — which cast iron is scaling at a rate worth acting on, and which clay joints are tolerable.

Details are on our sewer camera inspection page, and our full sewer and drain services follow from what the camera finds.

Contact 72 Degrees or call (830) 468-5316.