Do you need a sewer scope on an older Portland house?

The sewer line is the one part of an old house nobody tours. You'll open every closet, run the faucets and stand in the basement nodding at the furnace. Meanwhile the pipe that carries everything from the house to the street is under the yard, and on an older house it may be as old as the house is.

So yes, on an older house we'd get it scoped. Here's what a sewer scope is, why Portland is a good place to want one, and what to do with what it finds.

What is a sewer scope?

A plumber or inspector runs a camera down the sewer line, from the house out toward the street, and you watch what it sees. It's usually added on to a regular home inspection, because a regular inspection can only look at the plumbing you can see.

The camera is looking for the things you can't find any other way: a crack, a joint that's pulled apart, a section that's collapsed, or roots that have found their way in. Grease and tree roots are the main causes of sewer blockages, according to the EPA, and close-in Portland has no shortage of either big old trees or old pipe.

Why does it matter more in Portland?

Because of who owns what. In Portland, the property owner is responsible for the sewer line from the house to the curb, including the stretch under the sidewalk and the parking strip. The city is responsible for the public sewer under the street. Both of those come from the city's guide to broken sewer and drain lines. When you buy the house, that pipe becomes yours.

The same guide says older homes have concrete or tile sewer lines, from before the mid-1960s, and it names the places breaks are most common: the connection at the curb, and the spot about five feet from the house where the cast iron changes over to clay or cement.

Here's the detail that sticks with us. In May 2023 a sinkhole opened on SE Yamhill between 74th and 76th, and the city's engineers traced it to a private sewer lateral (the pipe that runs from one property to the main sewer) from 1914 that had failed and hollowed out a cavern along the clay pipe (Environmental Services, RiverViews, Spring 2024). That pipe had been doing its job for over a hundred years. Then it wasn't.

What else can a scope turn up?

Something most buyers have never heard of: a sewer line that isn't only yours. City code requires each property to have its own direct connection to the public sewer, and some older lines don't. Some join a neighbor's line before they reach the street, and some cross another property to get there. The city calls these nonconforming sewers, and it says it's "not uncommon for property owners with nonconforming sewer connections to be unaware of the problem" (Environmental Services).

Its advice for finding out is the same as ours: "The best way to find out is to hire a private plumber to scope your private sewer lateral." If you have questions about a shared line, the city's number for it is 503-823-7869.

What happens if the scope finds a problem?

Then you know before you own it, which is the whole point. You can ask the seller to fix it, ask for a credit, or decide this isn't the house. What makes sense depends on what the camera found and how the rest of the deal looks, and that's a conversation we'd have with you, with the video in front of us.

It helps to know what a repair involves here. Work between the house and the property line needs a plumbing permit, work between the property line and the curb needs a right-of-way permit, and a repair that crosses both needs both, with the pipe inspected before it's covered back up. And if the city finds a break first and sends a notice, the owner has 30 days to fix it or ask for more time. After that the city can make the repair itself and put a lien on the property.

You'd rather read about that in a scope report than in a letter from the city.

Is it worth it on a newer house?

Maybe! On a house that's a few years old, the line probably hasn't had time to get interesting. The older the house and the bigger the trees out front, the easier the call gets. Oregon's seller disclosure form asks about the sewage system, and it's worth reading that answer closely, but a seller can only tell you what they know. Nobody has seen inside that pipe unless somebody ran a camera down it.

Where do we come in?

We'd much rather talk about the built-ins. We'll still make sure someone looks at the pipe.

First step for you is to tell us about the house you're looking at, or the kind you want: how old, which part of town, how much tree. We'll tell you what we'd check before you bid, the sewer line included.

Call us at 503.730.8677 or email hello@houselabteam.com. We'll get back to you either way.

The Houselab Team @ LikeKind Realty

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