When your drains are running slowly, how can you be sure they aren’t blocked? Well, there is a way to see inside your pipes to find out if there is a problem. A professional drain cleaning plumber can easily do it without having to dig up drains or pulling out plumbing fixtures by using a drain camera.
A plumber who specialises in drain cleaning will carry a drain camera in his work truck. A drain camera gives the most accurate indication of the condition of a pipeline. Drain cameras can work their way through drainage systems from start to end to detect the source of a blocked drain. Furthermore, there are also a number of other benefits of using a drain camera to inspect your drains!
1. Quick diagnosis means they are cost-effective
Before drain video cameras came into common use, a plumber would find blockages by:
- Hoping the homeowner had a copy of the as installed drawings
- Unblocking the pipe and trying to guess where the drainage rods hit the blockage
- Digging up the affected area, hoping to find the pipe.
Diagnosing the cause of a blockage before the invention of drain camera technology had the potential to be a slow process, and potentially very costly and time-consuming. With the ability to use cameras in drains, a plumber is now able to inspect plumbing pipes without having excavate ground or dismantle plumbing fixtures. Quicker diagnosis and a more cost-effective outcome is the result.
2. Fixing and repairing blocked drains quickly
When a drain is blocked, a homes plumbing fixtures are out of order, and unable to be used. A home without working plumbing quickly becomes an urgent issue.
A drain video camera has a high-resolution camera with LED lights which illuminate the inside of the drain. A flexible cable attached to the camera head transmits HD footage to a monitor. The cable and camera head inserts into the pipe, then the camera sends the plumber live video of the blockage or damaged section of pipe, which takes the guesswork out of diagnosing the drain problem. This results in a quicker and more thorough job of getting a drain working again, and making sure the blockage has been completely removed and done correctly.
Using video drain cameras, a professional drain cleaning plumber and their customer can see with their own eyes what is exactly causing their blocked drain, making what needs to be done, much easier to determine.
3. No excavation means no mess
In most cases, a drain blockage is underground in a homes yard or garden. As a result, without drain camera technology, a plumber would need to dig up sections of the yard looking for the blockage. Luckily, drain cameras will minimise the amount of digging required (if it’s required at all!) Cameras have a locator attached and will tell a plumber the location of a blockage or damaged pipe. As a result, when the time comes to expose a section of pipe, the plumber can excavate the exact spot. However, in most cases, blocked drains can be cleared using other moderns technologies such as High-Pressure Water Jetters.
All of these technologies are expensive tools for a plumber to have. So, when a homeowner is looking for a drain problem to be solved, they should always make sure their plumber has a camera in the tool kit. A plumber who specialises in blocked drains is almost sure to have a drain camera and water jetters, so they know the job has been done correctly, efficiently and without the need or expense of an excavation.