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A sewer camera inspection in Arlington is $89 added to a visit, or $500 to $1,700 on its own. Half the owner-occupied houses here went up by 1960.
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Rather talk now? (703) 997-9757
5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews
Our plumbing team with the SeeSnake sewer camera, the drain machine and the jetter.
Licensed and insuredVirginia Class A contractor #2705192276
24/7 emergency serviceOften same-day, and we will tell you honestly when we can get there.
Our own plumbers, our own trucksNobody here is a subcontractor with a magnet on the door
The price is settled before the workYou see the number in writing before anything is taken apart
What it costs
Why we’re at the house decides which price you pay. On its own, the line often has to be cleared before the camera can see anything, and that’s what moves the number.
Sewer camera inspection, added to a visit
$89
Sewer camera inspection on its own
$500 to $1,700
A locator on the camera head marks the spot and its depth on the ground, so if something needs fixing you know where. If the line is fine, nobody talks about digging.
Comfort+ membership is $199 a year for four visits: a dryer vent cleaning, a water heater flush with a sewer camera inspection, a heating maintenance visit and a cooling maintenance visit.
What’s different in Arlington
By the Census, the typical owner-occupied house in Arlington was built in 1960, the oldest median of any county or city in Northern Virginia, and about a third of all homes here predate that year. Plenty are far older: Maywood was built from 1909 to 1941, Lyon Park and Cherrydale filled in from the 1890s into the early 1950s, and Ashton Heights had its biggest burst of building from 1933 to 1940. Unless somebody has dug it up since, the lateral from a house that age is usually the clay or cast iron one it was built with, laid in short lengths with a joint at every one.
Those joints are where trouble starts. Arlington’s sewer staff list tree roots first among the things that block a line, and Arlington keeps planting: trees covered 35.2 percent of the county in 2023, up from 31.7 percent in 2014, with a County goal of at least 40. Good for the streets, and a reason to put a camera down an old clay lateral under a mature tree while it still drains fine.
Westover went up in phases from 1939 to 1957, into the years Orangeburg pipe was common: wood fiber and coal tar pitch, advertised to last fifty years and prone to going oval under the soil. Plenty of lines from then are cast iron instead, and the camera settles which before anyone runs a cutting head through it. The County also lists lines broken by construction crews and heavy equipment, worth remembering if the house next door was just torn down and rebuilt.
Most Arlington homes have no lateral of their own. More than half are in buildings of ten units or more, and in a condo community like Fairlington, 3,449 garden apartments and townhouses from 1942 to 1944, one line often serves several homes; the condo documents say whose it is. Close to six in ten Arlington households rent, and for them a camera on the line is the landlord’s call.
By the numbers
From the Census Bureau’s 2020 to 2024 survey, owner-occupied homes unless it says otherwise.
When it’s worth a look
Arlington’s sewer staff name the early signs: toilets that flush weakly, kitchen and bathroom drains that lag. One slow sink is that sink’s clog. All of them at once point down the lateral, and once the County has checked its main, a camera finds where in yours.
Some houses from that era drain through Orangeburg, a tar paper pipe that a drain snake tears apart. If nobody knows what your line is made of, the camera goes down before the snake does.
When the washer empties and water rises in the basement floor drain, or a toilet gurgles while a sink runs, the main line isn’t carrying it all away. The camera shows why.
Who owns the line
The sanitary lateral, from the house to the County’s sewer main, is the property owner’s to build and maintain. Before calling a plumber about a backup, Arlington asks you to call its sewer line, 703-228-6555: crews check the main and clear a blockage there at no charge, and if the main is flowing, the problem is in your line. Source.
Our Virginia Class A contractor license, 2705192276, is on the side of the van.
Choosing who runs the camera
Questions to ask anybody who offers to put a camera down your line, us included.
Arlington’s floodproofing checklist calls a backflow valve advisable when a house’s lowest drain sits below the street out front. Whoever runs the camera is already in the basement tracing the line toward the main, so ask them before they pack up.
Ask to see it and to keep a copy. “It’s roots” with nothing to show for it is a guess, and a guess is a bad reason to dig up a yard.
A company that only digs tends to see a dig, and one that only lines tends to see a liner. We do both, so the footage decides, not the truck.
Two of our crew going over a work order before the day's calls.
From our Google reviews
5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews. Read them on our reviews page.
Plumbing system test and maintenance, including snaking the sewer line As a follow up, Tyson came out to check the system and gave us some good preventive maintenance tips.
Where we work
Next door to Arlington: Falls Church, Alexandria, Dunn Loring, Annandale and McLean.
Questions
Usually not. Roots get into a lateral only through a crack or a joint that was already open, and they reach twice the tree’s height or more, so the next tree over finds the same gap. Repair the joint or the cracked length and the roots have nothing to follow; the camera shows which it is.
$89 added to a visit we’re already making, $500 to $1,700 booked on its own. The difference is clearing: a visit just for the camera often has to clear the line first.
If the house is older or has big trees out front, yes. A standard home inspection usually doesn’t include one, and in most of Northern Virginia the line from the house toward the street is the owner’s to fix.
Ready when you are
Call, or send the form at the top. You get the price in writing first, and if the camera says the line is fine, that’s what we’ll tell you.
SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing
4230 Lafayette Center Dr N, Chantilly, VA 20151
44679 Endicott Dr, Suite 211, Ashburn, VA 20147
Virginia Class A contractor license #2705192276
SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing is a licensed, BBB Accredited (A rating), independently owned heating, cooling and plumbing company in Chantilly, serving Arlington and the rest of Northern Virginia. Virginia contractor license #2705192276. 5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews on Google, Angi, Yelp, the BBB and Facebook. SwiftPro maintains a dedicated HVAC team and a dedicated plumbing team.
From SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing in Chantilly. Housing figures are the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2020 to 2024, for each place named; permit, water and sewer facts link to each office’s own page and were checked in September and October 2026.