Camera Pipe Inspection & Condition Reporting

A camera pipe inspection sends a waterproof video camera through the inside of a pipe so its actual condition can be seen and recorded. In a condominium it is used on kitchen and sanitary stacks, building drains, storm lines and mechanical room piping. The output is recorded footage together with a written report that locates and grades what was found, which lets a board make a repair or replacement decision from evidence rather than from the age of the building.

Three situations account for most of the work. A line that keeps blocking, where the survey establishes whether the cause is a physical defect rather than usage. A reserve fund study or capital plan, where the engineer needs the condition of the drainage rather than an assumption based on its age. And a dispute over cause after a loss, where the footage establishes what actually failed. In all three, the inspection costs a fraction of the decision it informs.

Grease and scale deposits and how much bore they have taken, cracks and fractures, failed or open joints and hubs, corrosion and thinning of cast iron, low points holding standing water, protruding or broken branch connections, root intrusion in buried building drains, and previous repairs that were never recorded. What it cannot do is measure remaining wall thickness from the inside, which is why on pressurised distribution piping we pair it with ultrasonic testing.

Usually not. Most drainage inspection is carried out from the base cleanout in the basement and from the vent terminal on the roof, which reaches the full height of a stack without entering any unit. Suite access is only needed where a branch line specific to your unit is being surveyed, and in that case you will receive written notice with a date and window, and floor protection goes down while we are there.

No. Inspecting a drain does not require the building's water supply to be interrupted. What we do ask is that residents on the stack being surveyed minimise use during the window, because water running down the line while the camera is in it obscures the view. That request comes through property management with the notice, and it is normally a matter of hours rather than a full day.

The camera itself is not, but drainage work is. Protection goes down around every access point before anything is opened, the cable is wiped as it is retrieved, and the cleanout is resealed and the area cleaned before we leave. Where a line has to be jetted before it can be assessed, that part is contained at the cleanout and flushed to the base rather than pulled back up through the building.

It depends on the question being asked. If you want to know why a line blocked, the deposits are the evidence and we survey it as found. If you want to know the structural condition of the pipe for capital planning, the line has to be cleaned first, because a camera looking at an inch of hardened grease is reporting on the grease. We will tell you which applies to your lines before the visit rather than adding it on the day.

A single stack is typically a matter of hours including setting up and cleaning the access. A full survey of every stack and the building drain in a high-rise is usually a day or more, depending on how many columns there are and how accessible the cleanouts turned out to be. Buildings with no usable access points take longer, because establishing that gap and recommending where cleanouts should go is part of the work.

Yes. The recorded footage is yours, along with still captures of each defect and the written report. It should be filed with the building's records rather than left with the contractor, because its value compounds: the next survey is far more useful when it can be compared against this one, and a defect that has visibly worsened over two cycles is a much stronger basis for a capital decision than a single snapshot.

We can give you a properly reasoned assessment and we will not pretend it is more precise than that. What the footage establishes is present condition: how much bore has been lost, whether the joints are holding, whether the wall is fracturing, whether there is deflection. Combined with the material, the age, the leak history and the loading, that supports a defensible planning horizon. Anyone offering an exact number of years from a camera survey alone is guessing.

A push camera is a flexible rod with a camera head, pushed manually through the line. It is the right tool for stacks, branches and anything of small diameter, and it will go up as well as along. A crawler is a self-propelled, self-levelling unit driven through larger horizontal pipe, typically the building drain and storm lines. It carries better lighting and a steerable head, so it produces a much clearer record on the larger lines. Most buildings need both.

To a limited extent, and it is important to be clear about why. Drainage lines are open and can be surveyed at length. Pressurised distribution has to be isolated and drained first, and access is confined to whatever points exist. More importantly, the failure mode on a supply riser is wall thinning from the inside, which a camera cannot measure. For distribution we combine limited camera work with ultrasonic wall thickness testing and coupon sampling, which is what actually answers the question.

Inside a drainage line, often yes: an open joint, a fracture or a displaced section will show clearly and can be located and depthed from the surface. A leak on a pressurised line inside a wall is a different problem and a camera is the wrong tool, because there is nothing to run it through. For those we use a moisture meter, thermal imaging and acoustic equipment to trace the source before any finish is opened.

That is what it is written for. The report gives located and depthed observations, consistent grading, still captures and a stated recommendation per line, in a form that drops into a reserve fund study or an engineer's assessment without translation. If your consultant has a specific reporting format or grading standard they work to, tell us before the survey and we will produce it that way.

Yes, and it is a reasonable thing to ask for before committing to a capital project. A survey establishes what the pipe wall actually looks like, and the footage is yours to have reviewed by whoever you choose. It cuts both ways: we have surveyed stacks a building expected to replace and found years of service left in them, and we have surveyed stacks a board wanted to clean again and had to report that there was nothing sound left to clean back to.

For buildings on a scheduled stack cleaning programme, cameraing after the clean on each cycle is the sensible practice, because the access is already open and the bore is visible. For everything else, a full survey every five years gives a board a comparable series to plan against, and it should be brought forward where there is a new blockage pattern, before a major capital decision, or after any significant drainage failure.