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The Number, and Where It Comes From

Nobody credible publishes a national figure for this. Why that is, and what the number is made of instead.

The one-paragraph answer

What drives the price of a plumbing inspection or a sewer scope is access, the size of the property, and whether the lateral can be reached at a cleanout. No source worth citing publishes a national average, which is why none appears here.

PresalePipe is a referral service, not a contractor or a home inspector. We connect homeowners and buyers with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands. Every state page sets out who licenses plumbers there and where to check, so you can confirm before work begins. We carry out no inspections and no work, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call.

No published figure

PresalePipe routes calls to independent contractors who set their own prices. Neither standards body publishes a fee schedule, and the figures that circulate vary by an order of magnitude between markets. Any number we printed would be invented.

What actually drives it

How much of the system anyone can reach. A house with an accessible basement and visible runs is a different job from a slab on grade with everything concealed, and the standards do not require anyone to open a sealed access panel to close that gap.

Then whether you are asking for something the standard inspection excludes. A camera survey is separate work with separate equipment, and it is priced that way.

Source: InterNACHI Home Inspection Standards of Practice; ASHI Standard of Practice.

The question worth asking

Ask which standard the inspector works to and what they will not be covering. Both bodies publish their exclusions in full, and an inspector who is comfortable naming them before the visit is telling you what you are buying.

And the cost of not asking

The expensive surprises come from the exclusion list rather than the findings list — the run under the garden, the concealed material, the supply nobody was required to inspect. Knowing which of them apply to your house costs nothing and is the whole argument of this site.

Inspection report in front of you?Read us the plumbing lines and nothing else — we do not want the document. We will route you to a contractor covering your area who can quote the items on it, and you are never charged by us. Inspections are the theme here; calls of every kind are routed.

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