Why a sewer inspection belongs in every Westchester home purchase

What a home inspection does not cover

A general home inspection is visual. The inspector runs the taps, checks that fixtures drain, and looks at what can be seen. What they cannot see is the sewer lateral, the pipe that runs underground from the house to the public main, because seeing it requires putting a camera down it.

So the standard report will tell you the drains ran when tested. It will not tell you the line is ovalled at thirty feet, root-bound at the property boundary, or made of a material that stopped being manufactured in 1972.

Fixtures draining is a weak signal. A lateral can be most of the way to failure and still pass water from a tap, because a tap is not the load that finds the problem. Showers, laundry and a full household are.

Why it becomes your problem at closing

In most Westchester municipalities the property owner owns and maintains the lateral along its entire length to the public main, including the section under the sidewalk and under the road. The town's responsibility starts at the main.

That has two consequences worth understanding before you sign.

First, the most expensive part of the pipe is the part in the street, because opening a road means municipal permits, traffic control, and restoration to the town's specification rather than a patch.

Second, it is yours the moment you close. There is no warranty period and no recourse to the seller for something that was there to be found.

Rules do vary between municipalities, so confirm yours. But plan on the answer being that it is all yours.

When it matters most

Every house benefits from knowing. These make it close to essential.

• Built before about 1980. Clay, cast iron and Orangeburg all have known failure modes and all are at or past their design life. Orangeburg in particular is common in Westchester houses built between 1945 and 1972.
• Mature trees between the house and the street. The oaks and maples that make these neighbourhoods worth buying into send roots into every joint in a clay line. Root intrusion is the most common failure we survey in this county.
• Additions, or a finished basement. More fixtures on a line that was sized for fewer, and sometimes work done without a permit tied in badly.
• An unusually fresh-looking patch of driveway or lawn. Sometimes it means somebody already had a problem.

What you actually get

A camera goes in at the cleanout and runs to the main, recording continuously. A sonde in the camera head lets the defects be marked on the surface with their depth noted. You receive the video and a written summary of what was found.

The footage is yours whether or not you use the contractor who shot it. You should be able to take it to a second opinion, to your attorney, or to the seller.

Against the cost of a lateral replacement, an inspection is a rounding error. It is one of the few places in a house purchase where a small, fixed, known cost removes a large, open-ended, unknown one.

Using what you find

A problem found before closing is leverage. Once you own it, it is a bill.

Three ways it usually goes. The seller repairs it before closing, at their cost and to an agreed standard. Or the price comes down, or a credit is given, by something reflecting a real quote rather than a guess. Or you walk, which is rare but occasionally correct on a line that needs replacing under a road.

Footage matters here. "The plumber said it looks bad" invites a debate. A video of a collapsed section at a marked depth with a written quote attached does not.

Timing

Get it done inside the inspection period, alongside the general inspection. You need access to a cleanout or an accessible fixture, so it is arranged through the same channel as the rest of your inspections.

If you are already past that window, it is still worth doing. Knowing what you have bought lets you plan the work rather than meet it on a Sunday night.

If you are selling

The same argument runs backwards. A buyer who inspects and finds a problem controls the conversation. A seller who already has footage and a quote controls it instead, and can choose between fixing it and pricing it in. Being the one who finds out first is worth more than being the one who hopes nobody looks.