Spent $500 on a sewer scope before closing and it saved me big time

We were about to buy this cute 1950s ranch in Springfield, and our inspector said the main line looked okay from the outside. I pushed for a separate sewer scope anyway, which cost about $500. The camera showed the line was almost fully collapsed with tree roots about 20 feet from the house. The seller wouldn't fix it, and the repair quote was over $15k. We walked away from the deal because of that one video. Has anyone else had a sewer scope find a dealbreaker like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

wells.morgan5d agoMost Upvoted

@anthony127 hit the nail on the head about older lines. The thing with that 1950s ranch was the whole neighborhood had these huge old oak trees and the sewer was cast iron, so even though the main line looked clean from the street side, the roots had already punched through the pipe walls underneath the concrete slab. That camera showed a section so clogged with roots you could barely see daylight through it. A regular inspection wouldn't catch that kind of hidden damage under the slab. It's why I tell people to ALWAYS scope if there's any mature trees near the sewer path, regardless of how new the visible pipe looks.

eric_ramirez671mo ago

Glad it worked for you, but I usually skip that step on a ranch with a clear main line.

anthony1271mo ago

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I only bother with the extra check if the main line is older or has a bunch of spliced sections. Found a leak last year that way on a place I thought was all new pipe.