THE DRAIN DETECTIVE
Call Chris · (205) 910-9110 Open a case
BIRMINGHAM, AL · SEWER SCOPE + HYDRO-JETTING

The camera
doesn't lie.

Birmingham’s sewer scope & hydro‑jetting specialist. Flat $250–$500. Same‑day digital case file.

We send a high-definition camera down your sewer line, hand you a timestamped video report by end of day, and tell you what’s there — without trying to sell you a repair.

Same-day digital file · HD camera, timestamped findings · Flat rate, no repair upsell

PRICING · ON THE RECORD
$250
Standard scope
$350
Scope, no cleanout
$250
Hydro-jetting
$500
Scope + jet combo
HD sewer camera reel and monitor staged on a navy felt surface under brass lamp light
Live feed · 32 ft · Crestwood Live from a 1958 Crestwood line. 32 feet in. Roots at the joint.

Two services. Flat prices. Owner-operated. Birmingham only.

  • $250 flat
  • Same-day digital file
  • HD camera, timestamped
  • Birmingham, exclusively
  • Owner-operated
  • No repair upsell
THE CASE FOR IT · WHY $250 NOW BEATS $15,000 LATER

$250 today.
Or $15,000
next winter.

A sewer line is the one part of a Birmingham home almost nobody looks at before money changes hands. The home inspector doesn't scope it. The seller doesn't know what's in it. Your homeowner's insurance won't cover it when it fails. And it almost always fails at the worst possible moment — three weeks after you close, on a Sunday night, in the basement.

This city is built on red clay soil that swells and shifts with every season. We get 55 inches of rain a year. Half the homes in Crestwood, Avondale, Forest Park, Norwood, and Woodlawn still have the original cast iron or clay laterals from before 1970. The trees are older than the pipes. Roots find every crack. Joints separate. Bellies form. Lines collapse.

You can find out what's in your line for $250. Or you can find out the hard way. We document the difference.

WHAT'S ACTUALLY IN BIRMINGHAM SEWER LINES
#1

Tree roots.

The most common finding in Birmingham scopes. Roots can grow into a small crack in 30 days and pack a line like felt within two years.

70%

Pre-1970 cast iron or clay.

Most homes built before 1970 in Birmingham still have their original lateral. Cast iron corrodes from the inside out. Clay separates at the joints.

$4k–$25k

The repair range.

A full sewer line replacement in Birmingham runs $4k on the low end and clears $25k on the high end — depending on depth, length, landscaping, and whether the city owns the section that failed.

Send the camera down before it becomes a five-figure surprise.

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THE EVIDENCE · REAL FOOTAGE FROM REAL BIRMINGHAM SEWERS

Six things we've found this year. Inside houses people were about to buy.

Every job ends with a digital case file. Below: stills pulled from actual Birmingham scopes. Names and addresses are off the record. The cameras are not.

Tree root mass at a pipe joint, viewed from a sewer camera
CASE FILE 04-22 · 38 ft · VESTAVIA

Roots at the joint.

Tap roots from a mature white oak finding the smallest gap at the pipe seam. Two more years and the line stops moving water.

A separated pipe joint with a downstream drop visible from the sewer camera
CASE FILE 02-09 · 47 ft · WOODLAWN

Separation and drop.

The line broke at a joint and the downstream section dropped two inches. Soil shift, classic Birmingham red clay. Water still flows. Solids don't.

Fiber-optic cable running through a sewer pipe after being drilled through during installation
CASE FILE 03-14 · 22 ft · VESTAVIA

A fiber crew drilled straight through.

Fiber-optic cable visible inside the sewer line, drilled clean through the pipe by the install crew. Homeowner had no idea. The fiber company paid for the repair.

Hairline cracks running along the inner wall of a cast iron sewer pipe
CASE FILE 11-17 · 51 ft · AVONDALE

Three cracks. One pipe.

Cast iron from 1962 corroding from the inside. The cracks are still hairline today. By next summer they're a backup. Owner caught it pre-listing — repaired before going to market.

A clean, defect-free residential sewer lateral running to the city tap
CASE FILE 05-30 · 60 ft · MOUNTAIN BROOK

A line that's actually fine.

This is what a healthy lateral looks like all the way to the city tap. We'll tell you when there's nothing wrong. Same flat rate. Same case file. No invented problem.

A dense root mass packing the interior of a sewer line, blocking camera advancement
CASE FILE 09-03 · 41 ft · NORWOOD

Roots, packed like felt.

A dense root mass was stopping the camera from passing. The homeowner had hydro jetting performed, which should keep the line flowing for many years.

Six cases. Six families who got the footage before they got the bill.

HOW IT WORKS · THREE STEPS, ONE DAY

Open a case in the morning.
Close it before dinner.

1

Open a case.

Call Chris or send the form. Tell us the address, the situation, the closing date if there is one. We confirm the price before we hang up — $250, $350, or $500. No "we'll see when we get there." The price is set.

2

We send the camera down.

We arrive on time, in a marked truck, with the HD camera and the jetter on board. Most jobs take 45 minutes to 90 minutes on site. You're welcome to watch the monitor with us. Your agent is welcome too. We narrate what we're seeing as we see it.

3

Get the file.

By end of day, your inbox has the digital case file: HD video of the entire run, timestamped findings, plain-English notes, and a summary you can hand to a contractor, a seller, or your agent. No waiting a week. No follow-up phone tag.

Three steps. One trip. One flat price. One file in your inbox by 5pm.

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PRICING · ON THE RECORD

The price is the price. We post it because nobody else will.

Every other plumber in Birmingham wants you to call before they'll quote a sewer scope. There's a reason for that, and it's not in your favor. We publish all four prices, in writing, before you ever pick up the phone. What we quote is what you pay — set before we arrive, not after we open up the line. If the job's bigger than we thought, that's our problem, not yours.

CASE TYPE 01
$250

Standard sewer scope.

When it fits: Most homes built since 1980 with a visible exterior cleanout in the yard or near the foundation.

What you get: Full HD camera run from the cleanout to the city main. Same-day digital case file with footage, timestamps, and findings.

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CASE TYPE 02
$350

Scope with alternative entry.

When it fits: Older homes with no exterior cleanout — a lot of pre-1970 Birmingham housing stock. We enter through a roof vent stack, an interior cleanout, or by pulling a toilet and resetting it on a fresh wax ring when we're done.

What you get: Same camera, same footage, same case file. Extra access work, priced flat.

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CASE TYPE 03
$250

Hydro-jetting service.

When it fits: Recurring backups. Slow drains. Buildup that snaking won't solve. Maintenance for a line you already know has scaling or root growth.

What you get: 4,000-PSI water cuts roots, scale, and grease off the pipe wall — not just a hole through the clog. Lines clear by hydro-jetting stay clear three times longer than lines that were snaked. First hour included. $100/hour after that.

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ALWAYS INCLUDED

Every job: HD camera, timestamped findings, same-day digital case file, and a phone call from Chris if there's anything that needs talking through.

WHAT WE DON'T DO

We don't sell the repair work. If your line needs replaced or spot-fixed, we'll tell you, send you the footage, and step aside. You can take our file to any contractor in Birmingham — the camera doesn't lie regardless of who's looking at it.

WHO WE SERVE · THREE KINDS OF CALLS

Different urgency.
Same case file.

A

Homebuyers, days from closing.

Your inspector noted "recommend sewer scope." You've got a closing date in eight days and three quotes in your inbox, none of them under $400, none of them with a number you can plan around. We'll be there this week. Flat $250. Footage in your inbox by 5pm. Take it into negotiation Friday morning.

Open a case before close
B

Agents who refer with confidence.

You need a vendor who shows up on time, prices clean, and doesn't scare your buyer out of the deal with bad bedside manner or a $9,000 sky-quote. We're owner-operated. Chris answers the phone. The price is published. The report is same-day. Your client doesn't get sold anything they don't need. Add us to your vendor list.

Refer a client
C

Homeowners, tired of snake-and-go.

You've snaked the same line two or three times. It clears for a few weeks, then it doesn't. The plumber shrugs, charges you again, and disappears until the next one. Stop guessing. We'll send the camera down, show you exactly what's happening on the pipe wall, and jet it clean if your line can take the pressure. One trip. One file. One actual answer.

Send the camera down
The Drain Detective service van parked outside a Birmingham craftsman bungalow
FIELD OFFICE · BIRMINGHAM, AL The truck. The camera. The case file. That's the company.
Macro of the HD sewer scope camera head with brass accent lighting
EXHIBIT A · CAMERA HEAD The witness on every job.
MEET THE DETECTIVE · CHRIS BROWN, OWNER

The owner answers the phone. The owner runs the camera.

Chris Brown has been cleaning drains for 30 years. He started sewer scoping and jetting in 2021 because no one was putting eyes on the cause of the stoppages and he wanted to make sure the lines were clear. Plenty of plumbers will scope a line when you ask. None of them treat it as the entire job. Most use the camera as a way to find work they can sell you afterward. That's the conflict of interest the rest of the category lives inside, and it's the one we built this company to leave.

Chris runs every scope. Every job. He owns the truck. His name is on the invoice. He doesn't dispatch a technician on commission, doesn't carry a tablet that quotes you a sewer line replacement before he's pulled the camera out, and doesn't have a corporate target to hit. The whole business is two services and one operator. That's by design.

Birmingham is the entire service area on purpose. Chris grew up here. He knows which neighborhoods still have cast iron in the ground and which ones the city has actually re-laid. He knows what 50 years of red clay does to a pipe joint. He knows how the Avondale main sits relative to the Forest Park main and which streets have heavy root canopy on the lateral side. Local in a way that matters.

"I scope it. I jet it. I tell you what's there. If you need it replaced, I'll point you to someone honest. That's the whole job."

— Chris Brown
  • Owner-operated. Chris on the phone, Chris on the camera, Chris on the invoice.
  • No repair upsell. We don't sell sewer line replacement. Our findings aren't tilted toward generating one.
  • Birmingham only. We work this metro and nothing outside it. The expertise compounds.
SERVICE AREA · BIRMINGHAM, ON PURPOSE

One metro.
Every neighborhood.

We work the Birmingham metro and nothing outside it. The expertise compounds when you stop crossing county lines.

Avondale, Birmingham proper, Crestwood, Five Points South, Forest Park, Gardendale, Helena, Homewood, Hoover, Hueytown, Mountain Brook, Norwood, Pelham, Trussville, Vestavia Hills, Woodlawn — and most points within 25 miles of downtown Birmingham.

Closing on a house just outside the line? Call Chris anyway. We make case-by-case exceptions for closings on a clock.

FAQ · ASKED AND ANSWERED

The questions buyers ask at 11pm.

CASE OPEN

Open a case.

$250 flat. HD footage. Case file in your inbox by end of day.

INTAKE FORM · NEW CASE

Open a case

Tell us where, when, and what you're worried about. Chris reviews every form and replies within the business day.

Chris replies the same business day. We don't share your number, don't add you to a list, don't sell anything you didn't ask about.

PAYMENT · ON THE RECORD

Settle the case.

Already a customer? Pick the channel that's easiest. Same flat rate, same case file — paid your way.

Payments go directly to Chris Brown. We don't store your card or banking details on this site.

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