Sewer Scope Before You Buy an Older Home in the Portland Metro

A standard home inspection looks at the plumbing you can see: fixtures, visible drain lines, the water heater. The line that carries everything from the house out to the public sewer is buried in the yard, so it is outside what a home inspection can see. A sewer scope fills that gap.

Who owns the sewer line?

In most cases, the homeowner is responsible for the private sewer line between the house and the public main. Where your responsibility ends depends on your city, so check with the local sewer utility. Either way, a problem in that line can mean digging up the yard, and sometimes the sidewalk or street.

What a sewer scope looks for

A camera on a long cable goes into the line through a cleanout and travels along it. Common findings include:

• Roots that have pushed into the pipe through joints or cracks
• Cracks and breaks, sometimes with soil getting into the line
• Offset joints, where one section of pipe has shifted against the next
• Bellies, low spots where water and waste collect instead of flowing
• Changes in pipe material, which can show where earlier repairs were made

Why older Portland-area homes are good candidates

Many neighborhoods around Portland were built long before modern plastic sewer pipe was common. Older lines are often clay or concrete sections joined every few feet, and each joint is a place where roots can get in. Some homes built in the decades after the Second World War used fibre pipe, often called Orangeburg, which can soften and lose its shape over time.

Add mature street trees and decades of use, and an older line can have problems long before anyone notices a slow drain.

When to book one

We recommend a sewer scope for every home, including new builds, and especially for any home that is several decades old, has large trees in the yard or near the street, has been vacant for a while, or has a history of slow drains or backups. Booked together with a home inspection it costs less than on its own; the pricing page has both prices.

If the camera finds a problem

A finding is information, not a verdict. Depending on what shows up, the next step may be a quote from a sewer contractor, a repair request to the seller or a price adjustment. Small issues such as light root intrusion are handled very differently from a collapsed section, which is why seeing the line before you close matters.

Learn more about our sewer scope service, or schedule online.