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Old 12-22-2020, 09:44 AM
 
Location: Needham, MA
8,524 posts, read 13,896,762 times
Reputation: 7908

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Quote:
Originally Posted by jackmichigan View Post
Sounds like a racket.

Can you imagine the problems that would have caused if the buyer chose not to buy and refused to pay for the repairs?!
My clients would have been really upset had they not repaired the damage. At that point, the buyer had $1K in escrow. So maybe they would have tried to claim that but it's not easy to get a buyer's deposit money around here.

Quote:
Originally Posted by carcrazy67 View Post
I'm curious as to what kind of damage a "scope" could do. I have seen many sewers "scoped" and have never seen the scope cause damage!

BTW, no reason to scope the drain to determine pitch...totally not necessary as it is easy to to determine with a small level!

On an older house I would scope the underground drains...doesn't cost much to scope but it is quite expensive to fix an underground drain!

I would ALWAYS scope any cast iron or galvanized drain because they are likely past the end of their useful life.
To be clear, it wasn't the scoping itself that damaged anything and they were not scoping the pipe to determine pitch.

The house was 100+ years old and had a cast iron sewer service. The inspector suggested having it scoped because he felt the pitch was insufficient and therefore the water might be sitting in the pipe too long and it may have rotted potentially outside of the house in the yard (he was absolutely WRONG by the way). The buyer brought in RR to scope the sewer pipe and the RR tech did not feel comfortable running the scope through the clean out because it was such an old pipe so he pulled a toilet on the first floor and ran the scope through there. Again, this was a very old house and my recollection is that when he tried to put the toilet back some of the components failed because they were old and it caused a leak.

I don't know why but sewer lines around here don't seem to have issues. No one ever bothers to scope them and I've never heard of anyone having a sewer back up. Maybe I just don't talk to enough people. . Seriously though, most houses in my area have had their sewer lines replaced with PVC. Frequently, it is still married to the cast iron inside the house but at least the line leaving the house and going under the yard to the street is PVC.
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Old 12-22-2020, 03:27 PM
 
Location: NYC / NJ Metro Area
119 posts, read 231,897 times
Reputation: 113
Quote:
Originally Posted by DAXhound View Post
The popular home warranties don't cover sewer lines. You can often get coverage through your water company.. 60 bucks per year for 4000 in coverage.

I did some research on obtaining coverage through the water company and the reviews overwhelmingly don't look good. It appears the better option is paying extra on my home insurance for the additional coverage.
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Old 12-25-2020, 04:42 PM
 
Location: NYC / NJ Metro Area
119 posts, read 231,897 times
Reputation: 113
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePRU View Post
Sewer line inspections are quite uncommon in my area. I've been a real estate agent for well over a decade and I've only witnessed one. it was my listing and the buyer's inspector recommended the pipe be scoped as he felt it wasn't pitched correctly (he was wrong as inspectors so often are it seems BTW). Any way, they hired Roto-Rooter to scope the sewer line and they caused all kinds of damage which they said wasn't their responsibility to fix as they had warned the buyer ahead of time that it might happen as the house was older. So, the buyer ended up footing the bill to have the RR plumber come by and fix everything.
I called and spoke to a few different places to schedule the inspection but no one has confirmed my appointment yet. Out of desperation I called Roto-Rooter but they refused to speak to me when I said I wasn't the homeowner. They said only the homeowner could schedule the service. Is that their policy because of what you mentioned above? I'm having every other inspector at the property but the pipes is off limits? The general home inspector said to have them done so I didn't think I would need additional permission. Plus, none of the other places I spoke with even mentioned this.
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Old 12-27-2020, 02:58 PM
 
9,527 posts, read 4,407,360 times
Reputation: 7284
Quote:
Originally Posted by jackmichigan View Post
Sounds like a racket.

Can you imagine the problems that would have caused if the buyer chose not to buy and refused to pay for the repairs?!
Some local communities now require it and it's over $100 for the permit. Average inspection from local plumbing outfits isaround $400 give or take. Stories of some plumbers failing the inspection and giving 5 figure estimated repair bills because they know the repair can come off the sale of the house and/or they know the seller is axnious to sell the house just as the buyer to occupy it.
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Old 12-28-2020, 10:11 AM
 
Location: Needham, MA
8,524 posts, read 13,896,762 times
Reputation: 7908
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fountainrunner View Post
I called and spoke to a few different places to schedule the inspection but no one has confirmed my appointment yet. Out of desperation I called Roto-Rooter but they refused to speak to me when I said I wasn't the homeowner. They said only the homeowner could schedule the service. Is that their policy because of what you mentioned above? I'm having every other inspector at the property but the pipes is off limits? The general home inspector said to have them done so I didn't think I would need additional permission. Plus, none of the other places I spoke with even mentioned this.
The guy who came to my listing definitely knew these folks were not the owners. You'd have to ask the Roto-Rooter folks why they're refusing to help you. I couldn't say.
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Old 12-28-2020, 05:36 PM
 
738 posts, read 751,830 times
Reputation: 1581
This is one of those things that 20 years ago was brand new technology and has steadily come down in price and become more available. It's now pretty common that large cities have contracts to scope their lines every few years to look for issues. Most have it because of EPA mandate. As a result there are a lot of private companies with the equipment floating around. It's more likely to be a well known practice in larger and older cities because that's where EPA targeted first on enforcement.

Depending on local cost it's a useful thing to do before buying a property. Lot's of regular plumbers have the gear for it.
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Old 12-30-2020, 12:37 AM
 
Location: El paso,tx
4,513 posts, read 2,489,057 times
Reputation: 8199
See if you have a company called Bioremedies near you.
I've been disappointed with Rotorooter. Seems like they just try to upsell.
The Bioremedies company here was fantastic. I fully expected to have to reline pipes, and asked for estimate, but they asked to scope the pipes first to see if they needed it. They didn't.
They could have given me an estimate, and done a much more expensive job.
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Old 01-04-2021, 02:45 PM
 
Location: NYC / NJ Metro Area
119 posts, read 231,897 times
Reputation: 113
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePRU View Post
The guy who came to my listing definitely knew these folks were not the owners. You'd have to ask the Roto-Rooter folks why they're refusing to help you. I couldn't say.
My home inspector explained that in some homes the pipes are not easily accessible and drilling is required, which presents liability issues. The homeowner would have to give permission for the drilling.
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Old 01-04-2021, 07:56 PM
 
9,863 posts, read 13,982,226 times
Reputation: 21673
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fountainrunner View Post
My home inspector explained that in some homes the pipes are not easily accessible and drilling is required, which presents liability issues. The homeowner would have to give permission for the drilling.
The pipes are "easily" accessible through the clean-out or any plumbing fixture. If not, that, in itself, is a red flag. I can't imagine why someone would need to drill.
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Old 01-04-2021, 09:36 PM
 
6,336 posts, read 4,053,206 times
Reputation: 12921
In order to request a video inspection of the waste piping, you would not do unless you were suspicious that there is a problem either related to the age of the house or areas where the sewer line is not accessible.

Cameras will not always make it through the smaller branch piping and the best access point to video from inside a house would be from a toilet waste line, so the toilet would need to be removed. If it were just the exterior line that was in question, there would usually be a house trap or basement clean out that could be used as an access point to feed the camera through.

Sending a camera down a waste line could definitely expose and indicate many problems or issues with the interior surface of the pipe as well as pitch or settlement issues. This view might not expose any minor leaks or infiltration issues with the piping since the view is from the interior of the pipe only.

You would also need the home owners permission to do so, usually in writing and be prepared to shell out the cost to perform this test which could be somewhat involved depending on the possible access points where the camera needs to be installed.
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