Mamba Drainage Services
Sewer Camera Inspection Vancouver
Buying a house? Selling one? Drain that clogs over and over? Scope it on camera before you spend, or before someone spends on yours.
HD sewer camera, written report, MP4 footage emailed. Greater Vancouver coverage. Call (778) 961-0824.
Why Vancouver buyers should always scope the sewer
A failed sewer lateral has to be dug up and replaced. So does a failed perimeter drain. Neither one is cheap on a Vancouver lot. Yet most home inspections in BC do not include a camera scope of the sewer or the drain tile. Inspectors flag visible plumbing only, not what is buried.
That is the gap that bites buyers six months after closing, when the upstairs bathroom backs up for the first time and a camera shows tree roots inside a cracked clay tile lateral. By then the seller is gone, the home inspector’s liability is capped, and the new owner is paying out of pocket.
A pre-purchase sewer scope is the cheapest insurance policy in a real estate deal. We push an HD camera from your cleanout, or pull a toilet and go in through the closet flange, run the full length of the lateral to the property line, record everything in 1080p, and email you the MP4 with a written report.
What the camera actually sees. Ours is a Spartan Tool SeeSnake monitor system on a 200 foot reel. The head is 1.25 inch diameter for residential lines, with a 360 degree lens and an on screen distance counter that tells you exactly how far down the pipe the problem sits. A locating wand on top of the head transmits a radio signal we pick up on a Ridgid SR-24 receiver above ground. So when we find a crack at 47 feet, we walk the lawn, find where the camera is sitting, and mark it in paint. If you are scoping for a repair quote, that mark tells the next crew precisely where to dig.
Everything is recorded in 1080p with audio narration from the technician. You see the pipe interior, you hear what is normal and what is not, and the distance counter is on every frame. The written report goes out with screenshots of every issue marked by distance and the suggested next step.
Pre-purchase is the obvious one, but a scope pays for itself in other places. A drain that backs up twice in a year at the same fixture has a structural cause a snake will not fix, a belly, an offset joint or a root, and the camera finds it before anybody quotes a repair. Selling a house in East Vancouver, Mount Pleasant or any pre-1970 neighbourhood is another one, because a clean report in the listing package answers the question a sharp buyer is going to ask anyway. After a hydrojet, a trenchless repair or a pipe replacement we run a final pass and email the after footage, which is standard practice for us and is not standard for most plumbers. And if you are building an insurance file after a flood, a dated, recorded scope proves cause and condition to the adjuster in a way a written summary never will.
One thing we do differently. Our scope and our repair quote are decoupled. Plenty of shops run a free scope and then pressure you into their repair number on the spot. We charge a flat scope fee, hand over the footage, and let you decide. Take it for a second opinion if you want. The camera evidence is yours either way.
24/7 emergency dispatch
Scope it before subject removal, not after
A conditional offer with a camera scope built in gives you leverage. A post close discovery gives you a bill. Weekend scopes available, and phone quotes are free.
Camera inspection FAQ, Vancouver
Yes, and it is a separate service. The camera goes in through the foundation corner cleanout and runs the perimeter of the foundation, identifying breaks, root intrusion, collapse and sediment. If your basement gets wet during atmospheric rivers, drain tile is what you want scoped, not just the sewer. It is also the scope worth doing before you finish a basement, because drain tile is the one system you cannot inspect once the drywall and the flooring are in.
Yes, 1080p HD with audio narration from the technician. We email you the MP4. The footage is yours to share with other plumbers, your agent or your insurance adjuster. Ask for the file, never just a verbal summary, because a file is what you can send for a second opinion.
Yes. We pull a toilet and go in through the closet flange. It adds to the scope cost. We re-set the toilet on a new wax seal and pressure check it before we leave. Where a cleanout exists but has been buried by landscaping we will locate and expose it, which is usually the cheaper route and leaves you with an access point for next time.
Yes. We book Saturday and Sunday scopes routinely for time pressured deals. Weekend rates apply and the report still goes out.
Plenty of Vancouver laterals fail at or past the property line. The distance counter on the camera tells you exactly where the problem is. If it sits past the property line, the City of Vancouver is responsible for the repair, and we hand you the footage and the report to support the service request.
Yes. Stack scopes for individual units, accessed from the unit’s own cleanout, and common area horizontal stack scopes for strata corporations. Strata work is volume discounted.
A Spartan Tool SeeSnake monitor system with a 200 foot reel and an HD head. A sonde transmitter rides on the camera and we locate it with a Ridgid SR-24 above ground receiver. Everything records in 1080p with the distance counter burned into the frame.
It does. Some older sewer cameras are 480p analog, and at that resolution a hairline root, a crack and a smear of dirt all look the same. HD shows you what is actually in the pipe. The other number that matters is distance, because it tells the repair crew where to dig and tells you whether the fault is on your side of the property line or the City’s.
Yes. A clean scope report in the listing package builds trust and takes an argument off the table during negotiation. Pre-1970 East Vancouver and Burnaby homes often have clay tile laterals, and clay joints are root magnets, so in those neighbourhoods a buyer will ask. A problem discovered after close is a much bigger issue than one disclosed up front.
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Water where it should not be?
Ryan picks up. Live dispatch, and you get a real arrival window on the call.