A sewer camera settles an argument that guesswork cannot. We push a self-levelling camera down the lateral from the cleanout and watch the line on a monitor — roots, cracks, bellies, scale, separated joints — and you watch it with us. Gallegos Plumbing has run sewer cameras across Ventura County since 1996, with our own equipment, not a subcontractor’s, so the person reading the footage is the person who will still be here afterwards.
Buying a house? Scope the lateral before you close
A home inspector does not run a camera down the sewer. That line is the single most expensive thing on the property nobody looks at, and in Ventura County’s older neighbourhoods it is often original — clay in the pre-war streets, cast iron through the mid-century tracts, both of them at the end of a normal life. A scope before closing turns a five-figure surprise into a number you can negotiate with, and it takes about an hour.
What the camera actually finds
Root intrusion at the joints, the most common failure under mature street trees. Bellies where the line has settled and holds standing water. Offset or separated joints from ground movement. Cast-iron scale narrowing the bore until paper catches on it. Cracks and shear breaks. Collapsed clay. We locate the fault from the surface as well, so you know where it is and how deep, not just that it exists.
You see the footage
Every inspection comes with the recording and a plain-language read of what is on it. If someone tells you a line needs replacing and cannot show you why, that is not a diagnosis — it is a quote. Our own guide to hiring a plumber says exactly that, and we hold ourselves to it.
If we find something
Most of what a camera turns up is not an emergency. Roots and scale usually clear with hydro jetting, and a scope afterwards proves the line is actually clean. Real structural damage — a belly, a collapse, a shear break — is a sewer line repair or trenchless replacement, which we do with our own equipment rather than handing you to a subcontractor. Either way you get the footage first and the recommendation second.
Where we work
Sewer camera inspection across Ventura County, the Conejo Valley, and South Santa Barbara County — including Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Simi Valley, Moorpark, and Santa Barbara.