CCTV Drain Inspection Wellington

Drains fail where nobody can see them: under lawns, driveways, decks and floors, and on Wellington's hill sections often under a retaining wall or a flight of concrete steps. Without a camera, any plumber is guessing at what has gone wrong and where.

A CCTV drain inspection pushes a waterproof camera on a flexible rod through the pipe and records what it finds: cracks, roots, sagging sections, shifted joints and old patch repairs, along with exactly where each one sits. We inspect drains for homeowners, buyers, builders, body corporates and property managers from Island Bay to Upper Hutt and up the Kāpiti Coast. You get the recording, a short written summary and, where needed, the fault marked on the ground so any digging starts in the right place.

Pricing: quotes are free, and every job gets a fixed price before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.

CCTV Drain Inspection Jobs We Handle Across Wellington

• Drain CCTV
• Pre-purchase drain inspection
• Drain camera inspection
• Locating drain lines
• Root and crack reports
• Insurance drain reports

When a camera inspection is worth it

Camera work is not just for emergencies. The most useful inspections are often the ones done before you spend money:

• Before buying a house, especially an older villa, cottage or state house with original drains
• When the same drain has blocked more than once and you want to know why
• Before an extension, deck or new driveway goes over an existing line
• To get a fixed quote for a repair or relining rather than an estimate
• After a large earthquake, if a drain on soft ground has started playing up
• When an insurer, landlord or body corporate wants evidence of a drain's condition

What the camera shows

A good inspection tells you more than whether the pipe is blocked. We look for roots at the joints, cracked or broken pipe, sags that hold water (known as bellies), joints that have moved out of line, collapsed sections, changes in pipe material and connections that should not be there.

Ground conditions matter in this region. A 1993 Hutt Valley study placed Petone, Seaview and Gracefield among the areas with liquefaction potential, and the Wellington City District Plan now carries a liquefaction hazard overlay. Pipes in soft ground like that can shift in a big quake. On the hills, GeoNet has linked slips to older ground that was cut and filled decades ago, and ground that moves can open up a drain joint. Knowing exactly what you have changes which drain repairs or pipe relining options make sense.

How It Works

Who pays depends on your council

This is where footage earns its keep. The rules for the wastewater lateral, the pipe that runs from your house to the public sewer, are not the same everywhere in the region. Tiaki Wai sets them out by council:

• Wellington City: the council side covers any part of the lateral under a public road; the owner looks after the parts on their own land, on neighbouring private land or under a reserve
• Lower Hutt: owners own and maintain the lateral all the way to where it joins the council main
• Upper Hutt: private laterals are the owner's job, and on a public lateral the council may reimburse reasonable costs where CCTV confirms a defect such as roots or a collapse
• Porirua: owners look after the lateral inside the boundary, the council from the boundary to the main, plus the last 1.5 m where a main runs through private land
• Kāpiti Coast: Kāpiti Coast District Council runs its own network, so check its rules directly

Pre-purchase drain inspections

A standard pre-purchase building report covers what an inspector can see. Drains are underground, so they are often left out or noted as not inspected. A broken sewer under a driveway, or a stormwater line crushed under a retaining wall, can be one of the dearer surprises a new owner inherits.

If you are buying an older property, one with big trees, a steep section or signs of past drain work, a camera inspection before you go unconditional gives you facts to act on. You can negotiate, ask the vendor to fix it, or walk away. If the drains are sound, you have footage on file for later.

What a CCTV inspection costs

The price moves with the length of the line, how many branches need inspecting, whether the drain has to be cleared first so the camera can get through, and whether you want faults located and marked on the ground.

If the line is blocked when we arrive, we clear it with a drain machine or hydro jetting before the camera goes in, and we confirm the combined price before we start. For pre-purchase jobs we work to your settlement dates.

Making sense of the footage

Raw footage can be hard to read. We walk you through what we saw in plain language and sort the faults into those that need action now and those to keep an eye on. A hairline crack in an otherwise sound PVC pipe is a very different thing from a joint packed with roots in an old earthenware line.

Where the fault sits on the public side, the recording is your evidence. A clear video with the location marked saves a lot of back and forth with Tiaki Wai or the council, and it gives an insurer what it needs if the damage followed a storm or a quake.

Why Choose Cheeky's Plumbers for CCTV Drain Inspection

CCTV Drain Inspection FAQs

CCTV Drain Inspection Across Wellington

Our cctv drain inspection team works in every Wellington suburb. Find your local plumbers:

CCTV Drain Inspection Guides

• Stormwater on a Steep Wellington Section: Downpipes, Retaining Walls and Slips
• After an Earthquake: Checking Your Pipes, Drains and Gas in Wellington
• Who Is Responsible for Water and Sewer Pipes on a Wellington Property?

Related Services

See all drainage services or every service we offer.