The county checked its main and it was clear
After a sewage backup, Fairfax County checks its own pipe first. If that’s running normally, the likely cause is your lateral, and clearing it without a look only resets the clock.
Annandale, Virginia
Sewer camera inspection in Annandale.
Annandale sewer camera inspection: $89 when we’re already at the house, $500 to $1,700 booked by itself, for lines that mostly went in before 1980.
Get your price in writing
Send this and the office calls or texts you back to set a time.
We’ll call or text this number about your request. By sending it you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Rather talk now? (703) 997-9757
- Camera before any dig
- Priced in writing first
- Dedicated plumbing team
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
What a sewer camera inspection costs in Annandale.
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 Annandale
Annandale’s original sewer laterals, and the county rule that makes them yours.
The typical owner’s house in the Annandale Census place went up in 1967, and more than a quarter of its homes predate 1960. Across Annandale, Wakefield and Woodburn, about 8 in 10 were built before 1980. Many may still drain through the pipe the builder laid. Cast iron, clay tile and, on some postwar houses, Orangeburg, a fiber pipe soaked in tar, all look alike from inside the house. The camera is how you learn which one runs under the lawn.
West of the Beltway, the Wakefield Chapel area between Little River Turnpike and Braddock Road is almost entirely single-family houses, Canterbury Woods among them, and nearly 9 in 10 Wakefield homes predate 1980. Fifty-odd years is plenty of time for trees to find the line: Fairfax County’s wastewater office says roots get into open joints and cracks and can break the pipe over time. The footage shows whether they sit at one joint, which periodic cutting may hold off, or run the whole length, where the county’s other answer, new plastic pipe, comes in.
Your part of the line doesn’t stop at the curb. It runs to the county sewer, connection included, often out under the street, and replacing a stretch under a state road takes a VDOT permit on top of the county plumbing permit. The locator marks where the trouble sits, so a root-packed joint by the foundation and a broken pipe under the pavement get priced as the different jobs they are.
Not every Annandale address has a lateral of its own. About one home in five is in an apartment or condo building, 3 in 10 in Woodburn, and a line serving a whole building is the association’s call. In the townhouse rows north of Braddock Road east of Wakefield Chapel Road, check the HOA documents before you book.
Neighborhood by neighborhood
What’s under the yards across Annandale.
Census figures for the owner-occupied homes in each place, and the sewer pipe houses that age usually have.
| Place | Median home built | Most homes are | Heated with | The sewer line you usually find |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annandale | 1967 | single-family houses, about 5 in 10 | gas, about 7 in 10 | Cast iron or clay to the street, with joints roots can get into. |
| Wakefield | 1968 | single-family houses, nearly all | gas, about 8 in 10 | Cast iron or clay to the street, with joints roots can get into. |
| Woodburn | 1968 | single-family houses, about 4 in 10 | gas, about 6 in 10 | Cast iron or clay to the street, with joints roots can get into. |
By the numbers
Annandale houses, by the numbers
From the Census Bureau’s 2020 to 2024 survey, owner-occupied homes unless it says otherwise.
Annandale
- Built before 1980about 8 in 10 Census
- Built since 2000about 1 in 10 Census
- Most homes aresingle-family houses, about 5 in 10 Census
- Heated withgas, about 7 in 10 Census
- Rentedabout 3 in 10 Census
- Houses built from the late 1940s into the early 1970s can drain through Orangeburg, tar paper pipe that a snake tears apart, so the camera goes first.
- Lines from before 1960 are often clay or cast iron, and roots get in at the joints.
When it’s worth a look
When to put a camera down the line in Annandale.
A house from the 1950s or 60s
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.
Water comes up the floor drain
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.
Choosing who runs the camera
How to pick the best plumber for a sewer camera inspection in Annandale.
Questions to ask anybody who offers to put a camera down your line, us included.
Does the camera go all the way to the county’s pipe?
In Fairfax County you own the line through its connection to the main, so an inspection that stops at the property line has skipped part of what’s yours. Ask how far the camera runs.
Will they show you what the camera finds?
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.
Do they line and dig, or only one?
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
What our customers say.
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
Sewer camera inspection in every Northern Virginia town we serve
Next door to Annandale: Falls Church, Springfield, Dunn Loring, Burke and Fairfax.
Fairfax County
Arlington County
Loudoun County
Prince William County
Fauquier County
Stafford County
Questions
Sewer camera questions from Annandale.
Does Fairfax County inspect Annandale sewer laterals?
Only its own mains. The county will check its sewer if you suspect a backup there, but its code makes the lateral from your house to that sewer a privately owned utility. For an owner who wants to know its condition, the county’s answer is a video inspection by a licensed contractor.
Is the sewer line under my Annandale rental mine to look after?
Yes. Virginia’s landlord law has a landlord keep the plumbing and sanitary facilities they supplied in good and safe working order, and the county puts the lateral on the owner all the way to the main. About 3 in 10 Annandale homes are rented, and between tenants is the easy time to look.
How much does a sewer camera inspection cost in Annandale?
$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.
Should I get a sewer camera inspection before I buy a house?
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
See the line before anybody digs.
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 Annandale 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.