Sewer camera inspection in Aldie.

In 20105, 93 in 100 homes went up in 2000 or later, and the typical owner’s home dates from 2013, so nearly every Aldie sewer line is PVC, too young to rust or crack. What a camera finds in one usually traces back to the build: trench backfill that settled into a low spot, a joint knocked out of line by heavy equipment, or grout and drywall mud rinsed down a drain before move-in.

Loudoun Water’s rules split the line in two. From your house out to the public main it’s yours to maintain, except the stretch inside the public right of way, where Loudoun Water alone controls the repair. When a plumber finds a defect in that stretch, the utility asks for photographs or a video file, with measurements, showing exactly where it sits, and then repairs its portion. In Aldie the recording is how the utility’s piece gets fixed by the utility.

In Stone Ridge, removing a tree with a trunk over six inches takes the association’s approval, and root intrusion that causes damage is a reason its design standards accept, with photos of the damage. A still from the camera is that photo. Street trees belong to Loudoun County’s required tree canopy, though, so the replacement goes back in at or beside the old one, often over the same line.

Only about 3 in 100 homes in 20105 predate 1980, most of them older than 1960: largely the village houses along Route 50 and farmhouses, since the subdivisions came later. A line that old is often cast iron or clay with roots at the joints, and one from the 1950s or 60s can be Orangeburg, pressed paper soaked in tar, so the camera goes in before any cable does.