Cleared the same day where we can and filmed afterwards, plus the pre-purchase survey of the one system a building inspection never looks at.
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People buying a house in this suburb order a building inspection and a pest inspection as a matter of course. Both are worth doing and neither of them goes anywhere near the drainage.
A building inspection examines the structure. A pest inspection looks for timber pests. Neither puts a camera into a sewer line, which means the pipework under the property, the one system where a defect costs four figures to repair, is the one system nobody examines before the money changes hands.
That is a strange gap and it persists mostly because nobody mentions it. A drain survey is a few hundred dollars against a purchase price. It takes an afternoon. And the deliverable is a recording and a written summary, which is something a conveyancer can actually act on in a way that a suspicion is not.
A clean result is worth having too. Plenty of these inspections come back showing sound pipe, and the buyer has bought certainty plus a baseline recording of what the drainage looked like on the day they took it on.
Nobody else is going to look at the drains. Book the survey with the same lead time you gave the building inspector.
Structure and timber pests, respectively. Neither of them puts a camera down a line, and neither report says anything about the condition of the pipe between the house and the street.
That is not a criticism of either inspection. It is simply outside what they are for, and most buyers do not realise the gap exists until afterwards.
So on a house purchase, the drains are the one part of the property that nobody has looked at before you own it.
A lot of Epping is Federation and interwar stock on lots subdivided long before anybody thought about tree roots, draining through jointed earthenware laid in short sections.
That is exactly the pipework where defects accumulate, and exactly the pipework nobody can assess from the surface.
Newer apartments near the station are a different question entirely, and on those the drainage is generally a strata matter rather than yours.
Which is why the cost of finding out is small against the cost of not knowing. A camera survey is a couple of hundred dollars. A collapsed section under a driveway is not.
It also changes the shape of a negotiation. A known defect with footage behind it is a number, and a number can be dealt with before settlement.
After settlement it is simply yours.
A conveyancer can use a recording. Nobody can use a suspicion, and nobody can use a plumber's verbal opinion relayed second hand.
So the deliverable matters as much as the inspection. You want the footage as a file you still have next month, plus a written account of what it shows.
That is what we hand over, whatever the result, and it is yours to do what you like with.
Alongside the building and pest inspection rather than after it, because that is the window in which the information is still useful.
It needs access to the property and it needs an access point, so it gets arranged the same way an ordinary inspection does.
If the contract is already exchanged the survey is still worth doing, but it becomes planning rather than negotiation.
You have bought certainty and a baseline of the condition on the day. That is worth having even though it feels like paying for nothing.
Plenty of people are disappointed by footage that shows a sound pipe. It is the best outcome available and it is the one that stops you spending.
It is also a genuinely useful document to keep, because in ten years it is the only record of what the line looked like when you bought.
The same survey does the same job. It is worth doing once so you know what you are dealing with rather than guessing for the next twenty years.
The trigger worth acting on is recurrence. Once is an event. Three times in a year at the same fixture is a defect describing itself.
Clearing the same line repeatedly without ever looking at it is the one habit that turns a cheap problem into an expensive one.
The largest single cause of what we clear, whatever the packet claims about flushability. They stay intact, they catch on anything slightly out of line, and they hold everything behind them.
That is worth separating from a structural defect, because it is not one. A blockage caused by what went down the drain says nothing about the pipe.
The camera is what tells the two apart, which is the whole argument of this page in a different context.
It cools onto the pipe wall, narrows the bore a fraction at a time, and then starts collecting whatever comes past. A drain that has been getting steadily worse for a year is usually this.
It responds to jetting rather than a cable, because there is nothing solid to catch.
It also comes back if the habit does, which is the honest thing to say rather than selling a schedule of visits.
Roots do not break sound pipe. They enter at an opening the ground has already given them, and short-section earthenware offers a joint every metre to try.
On streets with mature planting over lines of that age, it is the single most common structural defect we film.
Where the camera finds one, it can usually be dealt with from inside with a liner rather than by opening the ground, which on an established front garden matters.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Through an existing access point where the property has one.
The recording is yours regardless of what it shows.
Footage plus a written report, worked to your contract deadline.
For what a cable alone will not shift.
Position and depth marked, so nobody works from a guess.
A blockage now, or a property you are buying. Those are two different visits with two different deliverables.
A blockage gets cleared through an access point. A survey gets filmed end to end whether anything is wrong or not.
What is there, in plain language, with the footage attached. Something a conveyancer or a partner can read.
Recording and report both, because on this job the paperwork is the product.
Ring and a licensed plumber picks up. We can be moving toward you while you are still talking.
Call 1300 381 569No, and it is the single most useful thing to know before buying a house. A building inspection looks at the structure and a pest inspection looks for timber pests. Neither of them puts a camera into the drainage, so the pipework under the property is the one significant system that nobody examines before the money changes hands.
On an older property, comfortably. It costs a few hundred dollars against a purchase price, and a defect in a sewer line is a four figure repair rather than a nuisance. Even when it comes back clean, you have bought certainty and a recording.
Then you have evidence, which is exactly the point. Footage of a defect is something a conveyancer can do something with. A suspicion is not. And if the sale proceeds anyway, you have gone in knowing what is there rather than discovering it in the second winter.
Wipes lead by a distance, whatever the packet claims. They do not break down, they snag inside the pipe and they gather everything behind them. Fat and hair account for most of the remainder.
Yes, while it is still information rather than an emergency. A line that is gradually slowing has usually lost fall or is accumulating something, and both cost less to deal with beforehand.
Always, and with a written summary. On a pre-purchase inspection that recording is the entire deliverable, so it would be a strange thing to withhold.
Clearing a blocked drain is $150 to $400. A camera inspection is $250 to $450. A pre-purchase drain survey with a written report is $350 to $600. Jetting is $400 to $700.
Tell us whether this is a blockage now or a property you are buying, and if it is the second, tell us the deadline. We will work to it.
Cleared, filmed, written up, and the recording is yours.
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