Sewer Camera Inspection
What goes in before the jetter, and again afterwards.
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When cabling stopped working
Take the pipe back to its full diameter
A cable cuts a channel through a blockage. A jetter removes it from the pipe wall entirely, which is why a jetted line stays clear for years rather than weeks.
Camera first on any line we have not seen. Jetting the wrong pipe does real damage.
The difference
Why the same drain keeps coming back
Picture a four-inch kitchen line that has been in service for twenty years. It is not four inches any more. There is half an inch of hardened grease around the whole circumference, and water is moving through a bore about the size of a golf ball. It works, just, until it does not.
A drain cable pushed through that line does exactly what it is designed to do: it makes a hole. Water flows again, the invoice is small, everyone is satisfied. But the pipe is still lined with grease, the hole closes up over the following weeks, and you make the same call in a month or two. By the third time, most people conclude the plumber is no good. Usually the plumber was simply using the wrong tool.
Hydro jetting sends water down the line at very high pressure through a nozzle that fires most of its jets backwards. Those rear jets pull the hose along the pipe and scour the wall as they pass. What comes out is not a plug with a hole in it. It is the entire lining, flushed downstream, leaving pipe that measures what it did when it was installed.
Ask About Hydro Jetting
Tell us how often the line blocks. That interval usually tells us whether jetting is the answer.
Good candidates
The lines that genuinely need it
Jetting is not a general-purpose drain service. It is the right answer to a specific set of problems.
Kitchen
Grease, hardened over years
The classic case. Cleared easily, re-blocks within weeks, and the cable always comes back greasy. Jetting resets the line properly instead of postponing it.
Cast iron
Scale and tuberculation
Older Virginia houses with cast iron drains develop a rough, rusted interior that catches everything passing through. The right nozzle takes the scale off and restores the bore.
Sewer laterals
Root mass at the joints
Cabling shears roots off at the pipe wall. A root-cutting nozzle strips them back into the joint and flushes the debris away rather than leaving it to re-catch.
Recurring
A predictable interval
If you can guess the month it will block, the line has a condition rather than a clog. Jetting plus a camera establishes which.
Restaurants
Everything, constantly
Commercial kitchen lines are on another scale entirely and are usually best on a scheduled interval. See commercial plumbing.
Before lining
Preparing the pipe
A pipe about to be relined has to be genuinely clean first. Jetting is a standard preparation step for trenchless repair.
Is Jetting Right for Your Line?
Describe the pattern and we will tell you whether cabling would do just as well.
Step by step
How a jetting job runs
Done properly, jetting is a methodical job with a camera at both ends of it. Done carelessly, it is a great deal of pressure aimed at a pipe nobody has looked at.
- Camera the line first. On any pipe we have not seen before this is not optional. It establishes material, condition, and whether the line can take the pressure at all.
- Set up at a cleanout. Jetting needs a proper access point and a controlled water supply. The hose goes downstream and the area gets covered.
- Work in passes. The nozzle is fed to the far end and drawn back slowly, then repeated. Grease and scale come off in layers, not in one sweep.
- Change nozzles as needed. A penetrating nozzle to open a path, a flushing nozzle for grease, a rotating or chain head for hard scale and roots.
- Flush the debris out. Everything removed has to leave the line rather than settle further down it, which is why the final passes are all water and no cutting.
- Camera it again. The after footage is the proof. You should see bare pipe wall, and you should be shown any defect the build-up was hiding.
That last step matters more than people expect. Heavy build-up conceals cracks, offsets and root entry points. It is common for a jetting job to end with a clean pipe and a newly visible defect that needs planning for, and far better to know about it now.
Book a Jet and Camera
One visit, both jobs, and footage you keep.
Ask for the footage
Before and after video should be handed over as a file, not just shown on a screen in your hallway. It is your evidence if the line later needs work.
Straight comparison
Jetting versus cabling
Cabling is faster and cheaper and it is the right answer most of the time. Here is where it stops being the right answer.
Four cable visits a year costs more than one jetting visit, and you still have a lined pipe at the end of it.
| Cabling | Hydro jetting | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Bores a channel through the blockage | Strips the pipe wall back to bare material |
| Best on | Hair, paper, objects, one-off clogs | Grease, scale, root mass, recurring blockages |
| How long it lasts | Weeks to months on a lined pipe | Often years, if the underlying pipe is sound |
| Cost | Lower per visit | Higher per visit, lower per year on a problem line |
| Risk to fragile pipe | Moderate, if oversized heads are used | Real. Must not be used on failing Orangeburg or cracked clay |
| Diagnostic value | Whatever comes back on the head | Full camera footage before and after |
Get an Honest Recommendation
If a cable will do, we will say so. Jetting a line that does not need it wastes your money.
Where we stop
The pipes we will not jet
High-pressure water is genuinely powerful, and a pipe that is already failing does not survive it. Refusing to jet is sometimes the most useful thing a plumber does on a visit.
Orangeburg. Bituminised fibre pipe, laid across a lot of Virginia between the 1940s and the early 1970s. It deforms and delaminates with age, and jetting can finish it off outright. If the camera shows Orangeburg, the conversation moves to replacement.
Badly cracked or collapsed clay. A hairline crack becomes an open joint under pressure. Where the camera shows a structural failure, the correct next step is repair, not cleaning.
Severely corroded cast iron. Scale can be the only thing holding a thin section together. Jetting removes the scale and reveals a hole. Occasionally that is exactly what needs to happen, but it should be a decision made with you in advance rather than a surprise.
Any line with no cleanout and no camera. Working blind at that pressure is not a professional risk worth taking, and we will not take it.
Not Sure What Your Pipe Is Made Of?
Tell us the year the house was built. That usually narrows it to one or two materials.
A refusal to jet is information
If a plumber cameras your line and declines to jet it, treat that as a finding worth acting on rather than a service you were denied.
Commercial kitchens
A different scale of problem
Restaurant and institutional lines carry a volume of fat and food waste no domestic line ever sees.
- Scheduled beats reactive. Most kitchens settle on a quarterly or half-yearly jetting interval and stop having emergencies altogether.
- Grease traps still need pumping. Jetting the line does not empty the interceptor, and a full interceptor re-lines the pipe quickly.
- Out-of-hours work is normal. Lines get jetted after close. It is planned, not disruptive.
- Health inspections. A documented maintenance interval with dated footage is a straightforward thing to produce when asked.
- Shared lines in strip centres. Establishing whose line is blocked before work starts avoids a bad conversation about the invoice.
- Floor drains and troughs. Usually neglected until they back up mid-service. They belong on the same schedule.
Set Up a Jetting Schedule
Quarterly or half-yearly, out of hours, with footage kept on file.
Common questions
Hydro jetting, answered
It sits meaningfully above a standard cable clearance and well below any form of pipe repair. The variables are line length, access, whether a camera inspection is included, and whether the property is domestic or commercial. On a line that blocks three or four times a year it usually pays for itself inside twelve months.
Not a sound pipe. PVC, ABS, healthy cast iron and good clay all handle it without difficulty. Failing Orangeburg, cracked clay and heavily corroded cast iron can be damaged, which is exactly why the camera comes first. Any plumber willing to jet a line they have not looked at is taking a risk with your property.
A domestic kitchen line is usually one to two hours. A full sewer lateral with camera work at both ends is typically two to four. Commercial kitchen lines depend on length and on how long it has been since the last clean.
On a sound pipe with normal domestic use, several years. On a kitchen line where fat still goes down the sink daily, less. Where roots are entering at a joint, they will return. Jetting buys time, but the joint is the actual problem. See root intrusion removal.
Before, yes, on any line we have not previously seen. Afterwards we recommend it strongly. The footage confirms the work and reveals defects the build-up was hiding. Both are covered on the camera inspection page.
For grease, scale and recurring blockages, considerably. For a one-off hair clog in a bathroom sink it is overkill and a cable is the sensible tool. The useful question is not which is better but which suits the specific line, and that depends on what is in it.
Yes, with a root-cutting or rotating nozzle, and more thoroughly than a cable because the debris is flushed away rather than left to re-catch. It does not stop them returning. Only sealing the joint, by lining or replacement. Does that.
Very little when the work is done through an exterior or basement cleanout, which is the normal arrangement, because everything removed goes downstream into the sewer. Where a cleanout has to be created or an interior access used, the area is sheeted and protected first.
The house line and the run out to the tank, yes. It is worth confirming the tank has been pumped recently, because flushing a substantial volume of grease and debris into a tank already near capacity is not helpful. See septic system plumbing.
Yes, and for restaurants it is the norm. Work is scheduled after close so the kitchen is available and service is never interrupted.
Related work
Before and after the jetter
Jetting rarely stands alone. It usually sits between a diagnosis and a decision.
Drain Cleaning
Cabling and augering for blockages that do not need this much pressure.
Read moreRoot Intrusion Removal
Cutting them back, and the options for keeping them out for good.
Read moreCleared it three times already?
Stop paying for the same blockage.
Jetting takes the line back to bare pipe and gives you the footage that shows it. One call reaches an experienced local professional with a jetter on the van.
(866) 683-0244Book a Jetting Visit
Camera included before and after, statewide.