Round cover in the pavement stamped drain

Our Work · Sewer Lines

Sewer Camera Inspection in Newmarket

The lateral from your house to the street is out of sight until it fails. A camera run puts it on screen, with a recording you keep.

Cable machines sized to the pipe, from 1½″ arms to the 4″ main
Camera footage when a clog keeps coming back
Cleanout access first, so toilets stay on the floor
Every fixture on the line run hard before we leave

Cues for sewer camera inspection

Nobody books a camera for fun. These are the moments when it earns its keep:

You are buying a house built before about 1980 and want to know what is under the lawn.
The main has been cleared twice in a year and keeps backing up.
You are finishing a basement and plan to tie new fixtures into an old line.
A backup has already happened and your insurer is asking for the cause.
Soft spots or sinking soil show up along the path the pipe likely takes.

Drain job sheet

Tools on the truck: Drum machine with ¼″ and ½″ cable, sectional machine for the main, push camera with locator, plungers and closet auger
What we usually pull out: Hair mats at the tub shoe, grease and coffee grounds in the kitchen arm, wipes and roots in the main
Where we open the line: Trap arm or cleanout first; roof vent only when no cleanout is reachable
How we prove it: Run every fixture on that branch, then a camera pass if the clog came back

What fails inside the pipe, and why

Laterals here range from vitrified clay in the older core to cast iron and then PVC in the subdivisions. Clay joints shift with frost and let roots in. Cast iron corrodes along the bottom where water sits. Even plastic can sag into a belly if the trench was backfilled poorly, and a belly collects waste until it plugs. Around Huron Heights-Leslie Valley, many lines are now forty to fifty years old, which is right when these problems tend to surface.

On the job: tools, parts and steps

We start at a cleanout, or a pulled toilet if no cleanout exists. A self-levelling camera head on a pushrod goes down the line while a locator tracks it from above, so we can mark on the lawn where a problem sits and roughly how deep. You can watch the monitor as we go. Afterward you get the video file and a short written note on what we saw: joints, offsets, roots, scale, and where the line meets the municipal side.

What decides how big the job gets

Access: a cleanout outside versus removing a toilet inside.
Whether the line needs clearing before it can be filmed.
Length of run and how many branches you want checked.
Locating and marking depth for a future dig.

A camera inspection does not fix anything on its own. What it does is stop you from paying for a dig in the wrong spot. It also keeps a contractor honest, because the footage shows exactly what needs fixing and what can be left alone.

Shut it off and call, or book it?

For a purchase, book the inspection inside your conditional period, not after closing. For a basement that already backed up, call soon while the evidence is fresh. Pair the visit with a quick look at your sump pit using our sump pump test guide, since both systems keep water out of the same basement. Looking at a bigger renovation that includes new hot water? We also handle tankless water heater installation and can plan both together.

Asked on site

Do I get to keep the video?

Yes. You receive the recording and a written summary, which is useful for a purchase negotiation or an insurance claim.

Can the camera tell whether the problem is on my side or the town's?

It can show where the defect sits relative to the property line in most cases. Where your responsibility ends depends on the municipality, so we point out what we see and you can confirm with the town.

How long does an inspection take?

A straightforward run from an accessible cleanout is usually done within a short visit. Clearing a blockage first adds time.