Clogs, leaks, tree root invasions. These are just some of the many issues that can affect the sewer lines connected to your home. And if you wait until there’s already a backup or blockage to address sewer line problems, you’re likely facing a much more difficult, inconvenient and expensive repair.
Being proactive with regular Sewer Line Inspections is essential for identifying and correcting minor problems before they become huge headaches. Read on to learn some of the top ways routine inspections and maintenance can benefit your home’s sewer system specifically.
Why Inspect Sewer Lines?
Before jumping into the key advantages, it’s helpful to understand what exactly sewer line inspections entail and why they’re so vital in the first place.
A sewer line inspection utilizes special cameras that can be snaked through your home’s underground sewer pipes. This allows a professional inspector to visually examine the entire line and take note of any cracks, clogs, root intrusions or other issues.
Some key reasons routine inspections are recommended include:
- Pinpoint problems early: Catching sewer line problems quickly, before backups occur, means less damage to repair.
- Prevent backups: Finding and fixing issues ahead of time means avoiding major backups of raw sewage into your home.
- Reduce risk of contamination: Sewage backups often contain disease-causing bacteria. Identifying leaks early greatly lessens contamination risks.
- Avoid landscape destruction: Major sewer repairs often require extensive digging/landscaping work. Detecting problems early allows for less invasive fixes.
- Save money: Sewer line replacement can cost over $4,000. Early repairs are far more affordable.
Now that you know the “why” behind sewer inspections, let’s explore some of the biggest ways proactive maintenance can benefit your home.
Prevent Raw Sewage Backups
As hinted at already, one of the biggest perks of professional sewer line inspection is being able to detect potential problems before they turn into outright backups of raw sewage into your home.
Think overflowing toilets, smelly water bubbling up in bathtubs or laundry room floor drains, sewage water pooling around your foundation. These are scenarios no homeowner ever wants to encounter. Yet they can and do happen to properties with cracked pipes, invasive tree roots or significant blockages in sewer lines.
Catching minor issues early allows you to repair the problems before major failures and overflows occur. Instead of dealing with the aftermath of flooding sewage, you can remedy things preemptively with a simple pipe patch, rooter service treatment or drain cleaning.
Just fixing minor pipe issues as needed can prevent tens of thousands of dollars in damage down the road. So if wanting to avoid the worst-case scenario of raw sewage destruction in your home isn’t enough incentive, think of the significant cost savings too.
Lower Risk of Hazardous Contamination
Here’s a fact that may make you queasy—that murky, stinky gray water flooding into homes from sewer line backups contains far more than water. It also harbors potentially infectious bacteria, viruses, parasites and other disease-causing pathogens.
Reduce Risk of Property Damage
As an extension of preventing raw sewage overflows, the ability to find issues early also greatly decreases the potential for ongoing property damage after backups occur.
Just think through this nightmare scenario:
It starts slowly with a few gurgling drains. Then toilets start flushing sluggishly. Before you know it, first one—then another bathtub is overflowing with gray water each time someone showers or runs a load of laundry.
At some point in this progression, sewer water stops draining at all. As sinks, showers, washing machines and toilets continue being used, contaminated water has nowhere to go but up, out and everywhere.
This spreading sewage quickly soils flooring, ruins walls, compromises important documents or treasured possessions left on low shelves or in basement storage areas. Mold begins growing. Drywall becomes saturated. Insulation and subflooring are compromised. A horrific stench you can’t eliminate permeates every room.
In especially neglected cases, structural instability eventually becomes a concern too if seepage causes wooden supports or concrete foundation to weaken.
The costs to repair such extensive destruction are staggering. Yet this is the reality for homeowners who fail to inspect sewer lines and address problems ahead of time.
Through identifying minor issues before they devolve into backups, you safeguard against exponential property loss down the line. Sewer inspections help ensure no rooms of your home fall victim to contamination and everything remains safe for your family’s ongoing use.
Save Thousands in Repair and Remediation Costs
The average professional sewer line inspection costs around $250. Basic repairs for small cracks or clogged lines generally run $500 or less. More involved rooter service treatments might cost up to $1,500. Even significant pipe repairs or replacements rarely exceed $4,000 – $5,000.
Now compare this to the expenses related to remediating flood damage after extensive sewage backflows spread throughout a home.
Just basic cleaning to remove contamination and eliminate odors often rings up at $3,000 – $7,000 depending on the affected areas. Then tack on:
- $8,000 to $20,000 to replace saturated drywall
- $2,000 to $4,000 to install new insulation
- $5,000 to $10,000 to replace compromised flooring
- $10,000 or more for extensive mold remediation
- And a lot more if structural repairs are needed
See how the costs stack up? Being proactive with sewer line checks and maintenance is a drop in the bucket financially compared to handling neglected issues after backups unleash destruction.
Sewer Line Inspections allow you to pinpoint and address small problems for just hundreds of dollars. Ignoring issues until overflows occur can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands in related repairs and restoration expenses.
Prevent Damage to Landscaping and Outdoor Areas
It’s not just inside a home that sewer backups can wreak havoc. Outdoor areas are also vulnerable.
Neglected sewer line troubles that lead to backups can also bubble up through lawn drainage systems. Tree roots infiltrating pipes underground can leave ugly tracks of dead grass above them. And major excavation to access pipes for replacement inevitably damages landscaping.
Catching defects early allows for less invasive access to perform needed repairs. And halting serious blockages before they send sewage spewing up through lawn sprinklers or garden beds preserves the beauty and functionality of your exterior spaces. A little proactive maintenance goes a long way in preventing destroyed landscaping.
Promote Overall Home Value
It should come as no surprise that extensive sewer damage from neglected pipe issues makes a home exponentially less valuable. What reasonable buyer wants to purchase a property with known contamination complications or lurking backup risks that could unleash destruction at any time?
Proof of proactive maintenance like professional sewer inspections shows prospective buyers you care about the functionality and integrity of the home’s critical systems. This makes the property much more attractive than one with unknown lurking threats of major problems.
Caring for your sewer lines also means the home presents better during open houses and showings too. No funky odors or evidence of water stains signals better cared for systems and less risk for nasty flaws.
So if protecting property value matters to you, be sure to prioritize periodic sewer line checkups. They help keep critical infrastructure working properly while showcasing your dedication to ongoing care.
Conclusion
Regular professional drainage system inspections truly are a homeowner’s best defense against damaged sewer lines. Detecting little problems early on provides the chance to correct issues before they morph into hugely expensive and destructive backups.
While a sewer camera checkup may seem like an unnecessary hassle or expense on the surface, it’s trivial compared to the costs and headaches related to negligence down the road. Not to mention proactive line maintenance helps homeowners avoid unacceptable grossness and health hazards.
Hopefully this breakdown better clarifies all the ways savvy homeowners benefit from scheduling periodic Sewer Line Inspections. When it comes to safeguarding your home’s critical systems and preventing catastrophic damage, being proactive wins every time.
