Hear from Our Customers
A lot of homes in North Highlands were built during the McClellan Air Force Base expansion years the 1950s and 1960s when Orangeburg pipe and clay tile were standard. Those materials are now 60 to 70 years old. They weren’t designed to last forever, and most of them haven’t been touched since the day they were installed. Our sewer line camera inspection tells you exactly what condition your pipes are in, without guessing and without digging up your yard.
The clay-heavy soils in North Highlands expand when it rains and shrink back down every dry summer. That cycle pulls at pipe joints year after year. Add in the mature oak trees and established street trees that have been growing alongside these homes since the Eisenhower administration, and you’ve got root systems that are deep, aggressive, and actively looking for moisture which means your sewer joints. Our sewer pipe inspection catches root intrusion, pipe belly, and joint separation before any of it turns into a backup or a collapse.
What you get on the other side of this is simple: clarity. You know if your pipes are solid or if something needs attention. You know before you buy, before you renovate, before the rainy season hits. That’s worth more than the cost of the inspection.
Murray Plumbing is a licensed, family-owned plumbing contractor serving North Highlands and the surrounding Sacramento County communities. Our California CSLB C-36 license is verifiable, our pricing is posted, and our work speaks for itself 4.7 stars across 93 Google reviews, with customers consistently noting that final bills came in at or below the original estimate.
Our approach is straightforward: we run the camera, show you what’s there, explain what it means, and let you decide what to do next. There’s no pressure to schedule a repair the same day and no incentive to find problems that don’t exist. If your pipes look good, you’ll hear that. If something needs attention, you’ll see it on the screen yourself.
North Highlands is a community that’s seen its share of contractors who overpromise. Our reputation in Sacramento County is built on the opposite showing up on time, being honest about what the camera finds, and leaving the decision in your hands.
The inspection starts at your sewer cleanout the access point that gives the camera a direct path into your lateral line. The camera travels through the pipe while our technician narrates what it’s showing in real time. You’re watching the same screen we are. If there’s a root intrusion, a belly, a crack, or a collapsed section, you’ll see it as it appears not after the fact in a written report you have to take someone’s word for.
If a problem is found, our camera system’s locating transmitter marks the exact spot above ground. That means any repair work if it’s needed can be targeted precisely. No trenching across your entire yard to find a 6-inch problem. This matters especially in North Highlands, where a lot of homes have established landscaping, mature trees, and driveways that would be expensive to tear up unnecessarily.
The inspection typically takes an hour or less. When it’s done, you have a clear picture of what’s going on underground. Our documentation also meets Sacramento Area Sewer District standards, so if you’re in the middle of a real estate transaction or need sewer lateral compliance paperwork for Sacramento County, the report covers that too.
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The camera equipment we use isn’t a consumer-grade drain snake with a GoPro attached. It handles pipe diameters from 1.5 inches to 72 inches and reaches up to 350 feet into the line. LED lighting gives clear visibility inside older pipes that may have decades of buildup on the walls. Self-leveling technology keeps the image consistent even when the pipe has shifted or partially collapsed which is exactly what you find in aging Orangeburg and clay tile lines common throughout North Highlands’ mid-century housing stock.
Pricing starts at $99 and runs up to around $300 depending on the complexity of the line. That range sits well below the Sacramento area average of $250 to $850, and significantly below the national average of $685. There are no hidden fees, and the final cost routinely comes in at or below the original estimate something our customers mention specifically in their reviews.
This service is relevant for homeowners dealing with slow drains or recurring backups, buyers doing due diligence on a mid-century home in North Highlands, and landlords managing rental properties who need to stay ahead of sewer issues before they become a liability. The inspection is non-invasive, fast, and gives you documentation you can actually use.
Our sewer camera inspection in North Highlands starts at $99 and typically runs between $99 and $300, depending on how complex the line is length, access point, pipe condition, and how far the camera needs to travel. That range is well below the Sacramento area average of $250 to $850 and far below the national average of $685.
The pricing is straightforward and posted upfront. There are no diagnostic fees tacked on afterward, and no pressure to schedule a repair the same day. Customers consistently note that their final bill came in at or below the original estimate, which in a market where surprise charges are common is worth paying attention to. If you’re in North Highlands and want to know what’s in your sewer line before it becomes a problem, this is the most cost-effective way to find out.
If you’re buying a mid-century home in North Highlands especially anything built during the McClellan AFB expansion years of the 1950s through 1970s a sewer scope inspection before closing is one of the most financially sound steps you can take. Standard home inspections don’t include underground sewer lines. A home inspector will check the roof, the electrical panel, and the HVAC system, but they won’t run a camera through the lateral. That means you could close on a home with a partially collapsed Orangeburg pipe or a clay tile line full of tree roots and have no idea until the backup happens.
Finding a problem before closing gives you negotiating leverage. You can ask the seller to repair it, credit you for the cost, or factor it into your offer. Finding it after closing means it comes entirely out of your pocket. Given that North Highlands median home values are now around $381,000, spending $99 to $300 on a sewer pipe inspection before you commit to that purchase is not a difficult calculation.
The three most common issues we find in North Highlands sewer lines are root intrusion, pipe belly, and deteriorating pipe material and they often show up together. Homes built in the 1950s and 1960s were frequently plumbed with clay tile or Orangeburg pipe. Clay tile is durable but has joints every few feet, and every joint is a potential entry point for tree roots. Orangeburg a compressed tar paper and wood pulp material used as a post-WWII cost-saving measure was never designed to last more than a few decades. A lot of it is still in the ground.
North Highlands’ clay-heavy soil compounds the problem. It expands when wet and contracts during Sacramento’s dry summers, creating movement at pipe joints over decades. That movement causes bellies low spots in the pipe where waste pools and accumulates and joint offsets where sections of pipe have shifted out of alignment. Our sewer blockage inspection catches all of this before it becomes a full obstruction or a collapse that requires emergency repair.
Our camera system includes a locating transmitter that sends a signal from inside the pipe to a receiver above ground. Once the camera reaches a problem area a root intrusion, a crack, a belly our technician uses the receiver to mark the exact location on the surface. You’ll know within inches where the issue is, how deep the pipe sits at that point, and what direction it’s running.
This matters a lot for North Highlands homeowners with established landscaping, mature trees, or concrete driveways. Without a locating transmitter, a plumber would have to excavate along the general path of the pipe to find the problem which means tearing up potentially large sections of your yard. With the transmitter, any repair work can be targeted precisely. You’re only digging where it’s actually needed, which keeps the scope of the job and the cost contained.
There are two windows that make the most sense for North Highlands specifically. The first is fall October through early November before Sacramento’s rainy season begins. Winter rains saturate the clay soils throughout North Highlands, increasing hydrostatic pressure on aging pipes and accelerating movement at joints. If a pipe already has a hairline crack or a partial root intrusion going into winter, the wet season can push it from a manageable issue to a backup or collapse. Catching it in fall gives you time to address it before the rains arrive.
The second window is early spring, when tree root growth accelerates as soil warms and moisture is still available. Root systems that found their way into a clay tile joint over the winter will push further in the spring. A sewer line camera inspection in March or April shows you exactly how far root intrusion has progressed and whether it needs to be addressed before summer dries the soil and compounds stress on the pipe joints. Either window is better than waiting for a backup to force the issue.
Yes. We hold a California CSLB C-36 Plumbing Contractor license, which is the specific classification required under California law for sewer inspection and lateral work. The license is publicly verifiable through the Contractors State License Board website you can look it up by business name and confirm it’s active before you book.
North Highlands is an unincorporated community in Sacramento County, which means sewer oversight falls under the Sacramento Area Sewer District rather than a city government. Our inspections produce documentation that meets SASD standards, so if you need sewer lateral compliance paperwork for a real estate transaction, a building permit application, or any Sacramento County documentation requirement, the inspection report covers that. In a community where unlicensed operators sometimes advertise cheap inspections without the credentials to back them up, a verifiable C-36 license and SASD-compliant documentation are details worth checking before you hire anyone.
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