Sewer Scope Challenges: What Home Inspectors Can and Cannot Do

Sewer scope inspections can be thwarted by inaccessible clean-outs, requiring plumbers rather than home inspectors to create proper access points. We explore why clean-outs are essential, what prevents inspectors from completing scopes, and who's responsible for ensuring access before home purchases.

• Every home should have at least one clean-out, with additional access points every 100 feet for longer sewer lines
• Clean-outs can become inaccessible when caps fuse to pipes over time, are hidden behind walls, or were never installed
• Home inspectors in Ohio cannot legally pull toilets, cut pipes, or create new access points as these require plumbing licenses
• Sellers should hire plumbers to create proper access before closing if scopes cannot be completed
• Flippers claiming "the sewer works fine" based on minimal worker usage doesn't reflect a family's daily water demands
• State licensing prohibits inspectors from soliciting repair work on properties they've inspected

Remember to always get a sewer scope before purchasing a home to avoid expensive surprises after closing.

Transcript

Introduction to Standing Out in Ohio Podcast

Speaker 1 0:02

Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast , where we discuss topics , upcoming events , news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs . Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share . Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd . Now here's your host , jim .

Speaker 2 0:31

Hey everybody , welcome to the Standing Out and how podcast . This is Jim and of course I have with me Laura , the office goddess .

Speaker 3 0:38

Hello everyone , Hello buddy , how you doing , Hi buddy .

Speaker 2 0:42

Peachy Keaton , how about you ? Doing great , doing great , great . So weather's going back and forth lately , so I know you , you are tired of cold weather I am insanely sick of cold weather I don't mind it , but it'd be nice to have some nice weather .

Speaker 2 1:00

I am working on chicken coop , so if anybody sees me out and about building chicken coop so our chickens have more room for themselves , maybe easier to get eggs , because right now they want to lay their eggs hidden down below and it's hard to get . So we're going to fix that with the new coop . But I want to talk about this is not

The Clean-Out Cap Explained

Speaker 2 1:26

unusual . It happens to every , as far as I know , pretty much every single home inspection company that does sewer scopes . This happens where you get there and you there's no clean out that you can get to that . That could be in order to do the scope . There's a couple reasons why that can happen , but first let's talk about this or let's listen to this . Let's listen .

Speaker 4 1:50

Habitation investigation is the way to go For a home inspection in Ohio . Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs , from radon to mold to warranties For a great home inspection Okay , such a good jingle , anyway . I love that .

Speaker 2 2:20

The guy who did that did a nice job he did a very good job . I don't know if he's the same guy , was he ?

Speaker 3 2:26

the one from Australia .

Speaker 2 2:28

No no , no , I got him from New Zealand oh , he was from New Zealand . I can't tell the difference between New Zealand and Australian accents .

Speaker 3 2:37

I can tell the difference between Australian and England , but not between New Zealand and Australian . I've not heard enough of the New Zealand , yeah me neither .

Speaker 2 2:45

So , anyway , but not between New Zealand and Australia . And I've not heard enough of the New Zealand ? Yeah , me neither . So anyway , anywho .

Speaker 2 2:50

We had a sewer scope the other day . Yes , we get there and here's how typically how it's supposed to go . You go there . Maybe you do it towards the end of the inspection . The beginning it really doesn't matter . I like doing it towards the end because I ran water . So hopefully I have nice clean lines to go through If the house was vacant for a while and maybe they had been used . If there's a clog somewhere down the line or if there's a low spot , I want to be able to see that , and you can only see that really if there's water has been used . So I do toward the end . So at some point during the inspection you typically go to the basement , you open up the clean-out cap .

Speaker 3 3:35

So explain what a clean-out cap is for people who have never done a sewer scope or owned a house .

Speaker 2 3:42

If you live in Ohio and you have a basement anywhere . If you have a basement , typically you'll have that three or four inch pipe that's going vertically from your underneath the bathroom , typically going straight down into the floor . It can be cast iron , plastic , pvc if it's a newer type home or it can be cast iron it could be even copper and then it goes in the cast iron pipe . So your clean-out it's just a cap , a screw cap that you would just use a tool , maybe a monkey wrench , to unscrew it , usually about three-inch , three or four-inch , so you can stick a camera into that pipe and then go down into the sewer line and then from there you can push that camera all the way up to the street .

Speaker 2 4:31

Or maybe to a septic system , if you have that .

Speaker 3 4:34

So a clean-out is basically access to get into the pipe to do work .

Speaker 2 4:37

Yes ,

When Clean-Outs Are Inaccessible

Speaker 2 4:39

and every house should have a clean-out .

Speaker 3 4:42

Isn't there also something about ?

Speaker 2 4:43

every hundred feet there should be a clean out yep , okay , if say you're in a house and you're way back away from the street , off the street , and it's oh , it's a long distance between your house and the main sewer line for the city , you should have an opening , another clean out , 100 feet into it every 100 feet here we would need like nine clean outs 10 we would need a couple cleaners .

Speaker 2 5:11

Yes , to go all the way . If our , if we were in a city , right , we would need several cleaners all the way down there . So I thought okay gotcha . Instead we have one and we're only , and the septic tank is only I don't know 20 , 15 yards maybe from the house and there's a clean out , there's a clean out , right outside , there's sometimes a clean outside outside the house it's totally fine , but anyway you need the clean out because you may someday need to get inside there to unclog the check on things .

Speaker 3 5:48

You can be relining through that , so you don't have to dig up your pipes .

Speaker 2 5:52

Yep to reline it . Do some work . You need access to it , right ? Sometimes we get to a house and I'm thinking of a house that's on an , an older house cast iron pipes and they put that brass cap on it and if the cap has never been removed , you're not going to get it off unless you break it . And a lot of inspectors are like all right , no , I can't force that thing open .

Speaker 3 6:26

Well , there's a couple reasons for that , actually . So the first is actually our state licensing that says that we cannot damage a house .

Speaker 2 6:33

Well , we're not supposed to try .

Speaker 3 6:34

Right , that's for sure .

Speaker 2 6:36

And we're not plumbers , and that was the second one .

Speaker 3 6:39

So that's another part of the state licensing part . The state licenses plumbers and house plumbers . You have a specific set of skills and things that you can do . Home inspectors have their own skills and things that they can do and they don't mix .

Speaker 2 6:56

No , well , correct , now we can . If we can get that cap off and say the cap was junk and it falls apart , we can put a new cap on that . Right , there's no problem with that . This is something that every homeowner can and should have that ability to do . It's just a pretty simple things to do that . But I've had where I started . I turned a cap and I can see a crack in that cast iron pipe , like I can just see it . Now I'm like , oh , it's been cracked and no , I'm not going to force it because it will make it worse , so I'm not going to force it . So that's one case where we can't get to it . If it's cast iron and I'm using it as a brass , it's a brass cap that just over the decades , that metal just seems to weld itself onto the cast iron .

Speaker 3 7:45

Is that like a chemical process or something it is ?

Speaker 2 7:47

That's kind of crazy Molecules always move . If you took silver and gold bars and put them right together and left them there , they will eventually start migrating the molecules across each

Missing or Hidden Clean-Outs

Speaker 2 7:57

other .

Speaker 3 7:57

So they would like blend , they would fuse together . How long does that take ? Because that's cool as heck .

Speaker 2 8:03

I don't know they would fuse together . How long does that take ? Because that's cool as heck . I don't know . I've never had silver and gold attested .

Speaker 3 8:06

It would take a long time , I'm sure . Okay , so keep my jewelry together If I don't take my jewelry out or my gold and silver rings go mixed together .

Speaker 2 8:14

You would not need to worry about that . I'm talking long time and you probably have little vibrations in the jewelry box . So no , it's not going to happen .

Speaker 3 8:25

So what other reasons couldn't we get into a pipe ?

Speaker 2 8:28

Well , we can't get the cap off Right For whatever reason or it might damage the pipe or the cap . All right , kind of hands off .

Speaker 3 8:36

And that's a plumber's job , then because they're going to be the ones that are going to have to fix that and take that off and repair it .

Speaker 2 8:42

We would prefer a plumber come in and cut the pipe off , because they're cutting the pipe . They may even change out that pipe if it's damaged . They got to replace that pipe . Some of the home repairs are not supposed to . We're not there to do repairs .

Speaker 4 8:54

We're not plumbers , yeah .

Speaker 2 8:56

So if it can't come off , get a plumber to do it . Some people will pull a toilet up . Okay , when you do that , first of all it makes a mess , you get water all over the floor , but you have to replace the wax ring . You got to replace the wax ring .

Speaker 2 9:14

That is a plumber's job . Homeowner's not supposed to be there doing that and I do , especially from other states . They used to . I don't know if they're doing it anymore . They would go ahead and pull the toilet and they'd charge the homeowner an extra $150 to pull the toilet Right . It's like all right . Now you're selling a plumbing service .

Speaker 3 9:32

Right .

Speaker 2 9:37

We can't do that here in Ohio . So that or there's no actual clean-out .

Speaker 3 9:41

We've had that . Why would that happen ? Like is it just they were built so long ago ?

Speaker 2 9:47

no , shitty flippers . I'll be honest , it's usually bad the ones I've seen that don't have a clean out . There was a clean on that pipe . The pipe had issues , so they they just took the pipe out and replaced it with one and they did not put a clean-out into it .

Speaker 3 10:05

I've also seen clean-outs like under tile floors or behind plasterboard .

Speaker 2 10:11

Yeah , we've seen them where they put the clean-out behind a finished wall .

Speaker 3 10:15

Right and we can't get to it ?

Speaker 2 10:17

Yeah , we can't get to it . I remember the one they built a little finished wall around it .

Speaker 3 10:23

It was a little workout room . It was it was .

Speaker 2 10:25

It looked good it looked good and they had to take the top off so we could then get access from above .

Speaker 3 10:31

Oh and you still were doing juggles and you still had to maneuvering something that was your yoga for the day , baby , I don't want to go through the day .

Speaker 2 10:39

But we could get that . But still you need , you want access to your clean-out Because , first of

Inspection Limitations and Professional Boundaries

Speaker 2 10:51

all , plumbers charge you I don't know how much per hour quite a bit . You don't want to pay them time to get access to you . To create the access , so it could be the cap . Here's how we can do it . With a sewer scope , there's no clean-out . The cap is stuck or damaged , or the pipe is damaged no access to that clean out and one doesn't exist . I think I may have said something twice there .

Speaker 3 11:15

But either way , with any of those , the seller should have a plumber come in and create that access , that section , whatever , and you should always request that prior to buying the house , because once you buy the house and sign on that dotted line , you just bought that septic line issue well , and my my favorite little not really .

Speaker 2 11:39

But somebody flips the house like , oh , the sewer line is fine because all my workers use the bathroom while they're here working . I'm like all right you got let's say you had three guys at once . I've never really seen flippers hire a whole massive crew to take care of stuff .

Speaker 3 11:58

Right .

Speaker 2 11:59

A lot of them doing it themselves because they're you know it's more cost-effective .

Speaker 4 12:04

Makes sense .

Speaker 2 12:06

But three or four guys just peeing in the toilet is not the same as a family of four . It's not the same as a family of four taking showers , doing laundry , cooking , cleaning and using the bathroom . It's not the same amount of water flow .

Speaker 3 12:25

And I'll be . You know how many guys actually go in and use the restroom ? Or do they use a bush behind the garage ? I mean , let's be realistic .

Speaker 2 12:39

I don't know that percentage , but if you're working on the garage I'm sure it's pretty bloody freaking hot If there's a fence around you . I'm like , yeah , the temptation would be there .

Speaker 3 12:46

Oh yeah .

Speaker 2 12:49

So you're lessening even more the number Just because my crew used it while they're working on my , it's more the number Just because my crew used it while they're working . It's not the same .

Speaker 3 12:57

It's not the same . It is not the same .

Speaker 2 13:00

That thing could be 95, . That pipe could be 95% blocked , but since they're only there six hours a day , in fact , six hours a day , rarely using it . As soon as your family four moves in , you're doing laundry , cooking , cleaning taking two hours , two weeks . There's a chance that I said 95% block , that 5% water flow is not going to be enough to take care of all the water you're using . You're going to have a backup .

Speaker 1 13:31

Yes .

Speaker 2 13:31

So always get scoped . Is there anything else about this ?

Speaker 3 13:38

It is not the home inspector's responsibility . The client needs to talk to their agent .

Speaker 2 13:44

Did some agent think it was the home inspector's job ?

Speaker 3 13:46

Yes , some agent thought it was the home inspector's job , so I just want to make sure To do what . To actually pull the toilet , put in a clean out . I'm not sure I got kind of confused in that email , so I just want to make sure I'm very clear about this for everybody .

Speaker 2 14:02

Who is either new or really doesn't understand it doesn't want to be involved in the thing I don't know .

Speaker 3 14:10

So home inspection companies to a man cannot put in new clean outs . We cannot take off

Closing Thoughts and Contact Information

Speaker 3 14:21

stuff that's been welded . We can't pull a toilet . We can't do any of that because that falls under a plumbing license and most home inspectors do not have a plumbing license . Now there may be one out there that has a plumbing license , I don't know . I haven't pulled the list recently to see if there's any cross-matching between plumbers and home inspectors here in Ohio . That's the only one .

Speaker 2 14:44

If there is a guy here in Ohio that has a plumbing license and does home inspections , that's a pretty thin line , because you as a home inspector are not supposed to do repair work on the house you inspected For at least a year . For at least a year , it's a fine line .

Speaker 2 15:02

A home inspector did the inspection and the client randomly finds his plumbing company through internet search and one of his employees comes and does it . He doesn't know what they were doing . That inspection , I mean the repair work I see nothing . He didn't do anything .

Speaker 3 15:22

He wasn't soliciting which I think is was the concern because , yeah , it used to be that a lot of home inspectors had side gigs . They were , you know , they worked in , they worked in construction , they worked in remodeling , they worked in whatever and so they kind of used home inspections as a way to funnel that sideline to their other business , to make double money off of a client , which you cannot do under the state licensing law at all .

Speaker 2 15:50

You should not Nope , oh no , if you get caught , you will lose your license .

Speaker 3 15:53

You should not Nope , oh no . If you get caught , you will lose your license .

Speaker 2 15:55

And you should , and you should . It's not to drum up business for yourself , right , it's to do a good job for the client . If you had a family member that owned a business that does repair work , I don't see anything wrong with them , but you just let them know hey , this is a family member of mine , and I think that's full disclosure .

Speaker 3 16:14

Nothing wrong with that , yeah , and that's the client's choice then to make that phone call , and you know .

Speaker 2 16:19

Well , just like real estate agents , they can sell property . They can own property and sell it and still get that commission . As long as everybody knows that's what they're doing , right ? That's full disclosure .

Speaker 3 16:34

So nothing doing right .

Speaker 2 16:35

That's full disclosure so there's nothing wrong with that . A lot of real estate agents do investments very similar to that . So yeah , and they flip houses , yes , so so , yeah , good idea to get them done , not the inspector's job to make a clean out or to replace the pipe or pull the toilet . Here in Ohio , if you are a home buyer and you're listening to this and your agent says , well , well , the home inspector will pull the toilet , no no , no , no , no , no , no .

Speaker 2 17:03

That is not aware , or they're using a home inspector that doesn't follow the rules .

Speaker 3 17:08

Either way .

Speaker 2 17:09

Steps out of his role as an inspector , so all right .

Speaker 1 17:37

Thank you everybodycom . That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H , and click on podcast . Until next time , learn and go do stuff .