Sewer Inspection

A sewer is a carriage system beneath the ground that is used to carry the sewage from houses to disposal tank. In any developing country sewers are usually big pipes that begin with connection of sewage carrying pipes from houses to treatment facilities. Manholes (vertical pipes) connect the main pipes to the surface. A state of the art sewage system is an absolute necessity in any city. The city planner has to keep track about it all the time. A simple sewer generally made off small diameter pipes (most of the time they are of four inches). Operational and maintenance costs are usually high for any sewage system.

In most of the developed countries citizens are bound to connect there home sewer to the local sewerage system. This makes it more workable and manageable.

If any person wants to buy an old home, he or she must make a sewer inspection before hand but it is not at the top of their demand basket. Usually, they opt for home inspection for valuation, electricity connectivity and lot of other things, but most of them are completely unaware of this. It is advisable to find out the chinks in the sewage system of the house before buying it. The sewage system needs to be revamped or thoroughly checked if the house is older than twenty years.

Most common problem related to sewer line is growing of tree roots inside the pipes. Generally tree roots crawl through small openings and grow there after. This can be harmful because the roots can break in further and can cause havoc damage in the system. To counter this issue most of the times chemicals are used that kills these tree growths in the pipe. But this procedure is not always foolproof. Roots can reappear and can cause greater damage to the sewer pipes. If that happens ultimately excavation is the only solution. Houses constructed before the city sewers were made, often relied on cesspools. When the public septic systems were installed in the cities, most of the times the cesspools remained untouched and not connected to the main public septic system. It is almost impossible for a common man to know the nuances of sewage system (whether it is faulty or not). So sewage system inspection is advisable before inking the final deal.

In North America and Canada, the home that were built in or around 1950, consists sewer pipelines made from a special kind of tarpaper. These pipes are known as Orangeburg pipes. These pipes are not well made. Orangeburg pipes generally breaks down very quickly. If a house has a sewage system consists of Orangeburg pipes that definitely need to be replaced.

Most consistent problem with the underground sewage system is the high level of difficulty in inspecting them. Now a day's sewage system is highly developed and can take the load of wear and tear of many decades. But they need time-to-time inspection to make sure, everything is running smoothly. To inspect the sewer pipes we need to get into them, but damages can occur where it is practically impossible to see. So, a new inventive technology is being used now a day's. Plumbing companies are using cameras to make a thorough inspection inside the sewer pipes. It is well accepted also in the municipal workers community.

Usually a sewer camera is attached to a closed circuit TV. The camera is used to make visual inspection where human eyes cannot go. This camera can very easily identify pipes which have been broke down, level of wear and tear in the sewer pipes, blockages caused by elements that are released by the household, growth of tree roots inside the sewer pipes, pipes that are unsettled from their actual position because of the ground shift etc. Since, the sewer camera inspection costs a very few hundred dollars, it is advisable to get it done, rather than spending a lot more money in repairing a broke sewer system.