Drain camera inspection

What a drain camera inspection shows

You can clear a blockage without knowing what caused it. But if it keeps coming back, you'll want to know what's happening inside the pipe. In a sewer camera inspection, a small waterproof camera with built-in lights is pushed into the pipe on a flexible rod. The picture appears on a screen in real time, while a metre counter records how far the head has travelled.

The footage can reveal a great deal: a crack or break, a displaced joint, roots growing in through a socket, a crust of grease, or a dip where water always stands. Faulty connections show up too, such as a downpipe connected to the foul sewer, or a branch pipe that joins the main pipe against the direction of flow.

How to read the footage

Not everything on the screen is self-explanatory, so the engineer talks you through it as the camera goes along. A waterline that sits halfway up the pipe for a few metres points to subsidence. A ridge or step at a joint means two sections of pipe have shifted out of line. Fine, hair-like strands at a socket are almost always roots, and a jagged dark line in the pipe wall is usually a crack.

When a sewer inspection makes sense

Recurring blockages

If you need the same drain unblocked two or three times a year, there's an underlying problem in the pipe. A sewer inspection shows whether you're dealing with grease, roots, subsidence or damage. That tells you whether sewer cleaning will be enough, or whether the pipe needs repairing at one particular point.

Tracing a broken sewer pipe

A broken sewer pipe doesn't always cause a blockage straight away. The first signs are often indirect: paving that starts to sink, a wet patch in the garden, a sewer smell in the crawl space, or rats suddenly appearing around the house. Without a camera, looking for a broken sewer pipe means digging blind. With footage and a location fix from above ground, you can pinpoint the damage to the exact metre.

Before building work or buying a home

If you're building an extension, laying a new patio or planting a tree above the sewer pipe, it's wise to find out what state that pipe is in first. If you're buying an older house, it's worth having the drains inspected too, as the underground drain may date from when the house was built. And after building work, the camera lets you check whether the new drain has been connected properly and with enough fall.

What you can check yourself

Safe checks you can do

You can gather useful information before the engineer arrives:

• Wearing gloves, lift the cover of the inspection chamber and see whether there's water in it.
• Note which drains are slow: just one, or all of them at once.
• Walk round the garden looking for sunken paving, wet patches or a dip above where you think the pipe runs.
• Make a note of when the problems occur, for example only when it rains, or only after a shower.

If you know where the inspection chamber is, clear any planters, gravel or loose paving slabs off it beforehand. That saves time on the day.

What to leave alone

Don't pour chemical drain unblocker into the pipe while you wait for the inspection. It won't fix a break or roots, and the corrosive liquid will collect in the dip of a sagging pipe, exactly where the camera and the engineer need to work. And don't dig down to the pipe yourself until you know where it runs; an old clay pipe breaks easily.

If sewage is coming up in the house, the crawl space is flooded or there's a strong sewer smell indoors, don't wait for a booked appointment: call us straight away.

What happens during a drain inspection at your home

Access and preparation

The engineer chooses the access point closest to the suspected problem: the inspection chamber in the garden, a rodding eye in the soil stack or a trap taken off for the purpose. If the pipe is full of water or blocked, the engineer flushes it through first. Otherwise the camera sees nothing but murky water.

Picture, distance and depth

As the camera travels into the pipe, you can follow it on the screen. Anything unusual the engineer spots is logged with its distance from the access point. The camera head contains a small transmitter. Using a receiver above ground, the engineer locates the head, works out roughly how deep the pipe lies and can mark the spot for you on the paving or the lawn.

After the inspection

The engineer explains what the footage means and what your options are. Sometimes a thorough clean is all the pipe needs. If there are roots or a break, we'll advise on a repair at the exact spot, so the whole garden doesn't need digging up. If you'd like to share the footage with your landlord or VvE (owners' association), just ask whether it can be recorded.

Your property or the municipality: who deals with it?

A drain camera inspection also helps answer a question that often comes up with blockages: is the problem on your own property or under public land? As a rule of thumb, owners are responsible for the pipe on their own plot, and the municipality for the connection under the pavement and the street. Each municipality decides exactly where that boundary lies. With footage and a measured distance from the inspection chamber, you can make a strong case for which side of the line the blockage or break is on. If you rent your home, let your landlord know as well.

What does a drain camera inspection cost?

Our prices start from €129. The call-out charge comes on top and isn't included in that starting price. If you need an engineer out of hours, for example in the evening or at the weekend, the out-of-hours rate applies.

A short inspection straight after unblocking a drain is a very different job from fully mapping a long garden sewer or the pipes of a block of flats. For a larger sewer inspection like that, ask for a quote. Either way, you'll get a price estimate over the phone first.

Prevention and out-of-hours emergencies

What the camera shows also helps you prevent new problems. If roots were growing in at a joint, have the pipe checked now and then after the repair, especially if there are trees nearby. If there's a dip in the pipe, don't flush grease, wipes or cat litter, because that's where they'll settle first. And now that you know exactly where the pipe runs, plant any new trees well away from it.

An inspection is usually booked at a time that suits you. But if sewage is standing in the crawl space or coming up in the house, it can't wait. Call 085 333 4698: we're available 24/7 and the engineer is usually with you within the hour. We unblock the pipe first and, where it makes sense, the engineer checks it with the camera there and then. Our page on the drain unblocking service explains how an emergency call-out like that works.

Service area

We carry out drain camera inspections in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Zwolle and Breda, among other places. The locations page lists the cities that have a page of their own, but you can call on us anywhere in the Netherlands. From a canal house with an old sewer connection to a terraced house in a post-war neighbourhood, the camera shows what's going on in any pipe.