Plumbing Inspection & Pre-Purchase Reports
Buying a Bay Area home, or simply want to know what you are sitting on? We inspect the supply, the drains, the water heater, the fixtures and all visible pipework, then give you a written report with photographs and a clear list of what is urgent, what to plan for and what is fine. Sewer camera survey available as an add-on.
- Whole-home plumbing inspections
- Pre-purchase inspections within your contingency period
- Supply pipe material and condition
- Drain, waste and vent checks
- Water heater age, installation and seismic strapping
- Written report with photographs
- Sewer camera survey as an add-on
Signs You Need Plumbing Inspection
Catching these early is almost always cheaper than waiting for the failure.
You are in contract on a house
A general home inspection looks at the plumbing briefly and from a distance. It rarely puts a camera down the lateral and rarely tests anything under load. The contingency period is the one moment you have real leverage, and the one moment a proper look is genuinely worth having.
The house is pre-1960s
Homes of that era were plumbed in galvanized steel, which rusts from the inside and narrows until flow suffers. Cast iron drains of the same age scale up and crack. You cannot judge either from a tap that happens to run. It takes seeing the pipe, testing under load and looking inside the drains.
The water bill has climbed
A bill that has risen with no change in habits usually means water is going somewhere. We check the meter with everything off, isolate the house from the service line and work through the fixtures. On slab-on-grade homes over expansive clay, a slab leak is a very real possibility.
Mature trees over the sewer line
Street trees and clay sewer laterals are a poor combination. Roots find the joints, get inside and build up until the line blocks or breaks. A camera survey shows you the condition of the lateral before it decides to show you itself, which it invariably does at the worst possible moment.
You have just bought and want a baseline
Knowing the age of the water heater, the material of the supply, where the shut-offs are and what state the angle stops are in means you make decisions on your own schedule rather than in an emergency. A baseline report is what turns surprises into planned, budgeted work.
Small problems keep recurring
A drain that blocks twice a year, taps that keep dripping in different rooms, damp that comes and goes. Individually they get patched one at a time. Looked at together they often turn out to share one underlying cause, and that is exactly what a whole-home inspection is for.
Types of Inspection
Pre-purchase inspection
Aimed squarely at the contingency period. We look at what a general home inspection does not: supply material and condition, drain condition, water heater age and installation, visible leaks and evidence of past ones, and the state of the shut-offs. You get a written report with photographs you can act on with your agent.
Whole-home inspection for owners
For a house you already own. The point is a baseline and a plan: what needs doing now, what will need doing over the next few years, and what is simply fine. That lets you budget and sequence work sensibly rather than reacting to whatever happens to fail first.
Sewer camera survey
An add-on to either inspection, and the single most valuable one on an older Bay Area property. The camera goes down the lateral and shows joint separation, root intrusion, bellies, cracks and changes of material. It is the only way to know the real condition of a pipe you cannot see.
Targeted or post-work inspection
Sometimes you need one question answered. Is this damp patch a supply leak? Was that work done properly? Is this water heater installed to code and strapped correctly? We will scope an inspection to the question rather than selling you a full survey you do not actually need.
How Our Inspection Works
Book around your timeline
If you are in contract, tell us the date your contingency ends and we work to it. We target a 30-minute response to enquiries and average around 15 minutes, which matters a great deal when the clock is already running.
Walk the property
We work through the house fixture by fixture: taps, toilets, showers, sinks, laundry and outside hose bibbs. Everything gets run, and where possible run together, because faults show up under load that never appear one tap at a time.
Check supply, drains and heater
We identify the supply pipe material where it is visible, check static pressure and flow, look at the water heater's age, venting, seismic strapping, expansion control and connections, and inspect visible drain and vent pipework in the crawl space or basement.
Camera the lateral if requested
Where a sewer survey is included, we access the line through a clean-out and record the run out to the main. You see the footage yourself. Root intrusion, bellies and broken sections are pointed out and located as we go along.
Written report
You get a written report with photographs, sorted into urgent, plan for, and monitor. It is written to be read by someone who is not a plumber, and we will happily go through it with you on the phone afterwards.
Buying a Home in the Bay Area
A general home inspection is broad by design. The inspector runs taps, looks under sinks and notes anything obvious, but they are covering the roof, the electrics, the foundation and everything else in the same visit. Plumbing gets minutes rather than hours, and it almost never gets a camera down the sewer lateral. On a house built before the 1960s, that is precisely where the expensive surprises are hiding.
The two things most worth knowing before you commit are the supply material and the condition of the lateral. Galvanized steel supply narrows with rust over the decades, and by the time flow is visibly poor the pipe is well past its life. A repipe is a known quantity, but you want to know about it before you own the house. The lateral matters because it is your responsibility out to the main, and a clay line under mature street trees is very often full of roots.
Slab leaks are the other local reality. A good deal of the newer housing here sits on slab-on-grade over expansive clay that swells and shrinks with the seasons, and pipe run in or under a slab does not enjoy that movement. A warm patch on the floor, a meter that turns with everything off, or an unexplained jump in the bill are the usual signs. Finding one during an inspection is a great deal better than finding it after the new floor is down.
We give you a written report with photographs rather than a verbal summary at the door, because a report is something you can hand to an agent or use in a negotiation. It sorts findings into what needs doing now, what to plan for, and what is simply worth knowing. We are rated 4.9 from 364 reviews, and the report is the part people mention most often.
What Affects the Price
We quote every job up front, so you approve the price before anything starts. These are the things that move it:
- Size of the property and the number of fixtures
- Whether a sewer camera survey is included
- Accessibility of the crawl space, basement or attic
- Whether an accessible clean-out exists for camera access
- How much of the pipework is visible rather than concealed
- Turnaround required, particularly against a contingency deadline
- Distance, since some on-site visits carry a fee based on travel
Most quotes are free and can be done from photos or video you send us. Some on-site estimates carry a fee based on distance, and we tell you that before we come out.
Between Inspections
With everything switched off, note the meter reading and check it again an hour later. Any movement means water is escaping somewhere in the house. It is the simplest leak test there is and it costs nothing at all.
Find the main shut-off and the angle stops at each fixture, and check that they actually turn. A valve you cannot close is the difference between a wet floor and a wet house.
Close and reopen the main and the fixture stops once a year. Valves left untouched for decades seize solid, and they seize in the open position, which is the unhelpful one.
Note the date on the data plate. Once a tank is into its second decade, plan a replacement rather than waiting for it to fail into the floor. Check the seismic straps are still tight while you are looking.
Falling pressure, drains getting gradually slower, a warm patch on the floor or a bill creeping upwards are all early signals. Written down as they happen, they give an inspection something concrete to chase.
Plumbing Inspection — Frequently Asked Questions
Straight answers, without the sales pitch.
What does a plumbing inspection actually cover?
Supply pipe material and condition, static pressure and flow under load, every fixture run and checked, visible drain and vent pipework, the water heater including age, venting, connections and seismic strapping, shut-offs and angle stops, and any sign of past or present leaks. A sewer camera survey of the lateral is available as an add-on, and we recommend it on older homes.
Is this different from the home inspection my agent arranges?
Yes. A general home inspection covers the entire house in one visit, so the plumbing gets a quick look. We spend the whole visit on the plumbing alone, test under load, and can put a camera down the sewer lateral, which general inspections almost never include. The two are complementary rather than competing.
How long does an inspection take?
It depends on the size of the house and how accessible the crawl space and pipework are. A typical single-family home takes a good part of a morning, and longer with a sewer camera survey included. We would rather take the time and give you something reliable than rush it and hedge every line of the report.
Will I get something in writing?
Yes. A written report with photographs, with findings sorted into urgent, plan for, and monitor. It is written in plain English so you can pass it straight to an agent or a family member without needing it translated. We will also talk it through with you if anything in it needs explaining.
Should I add the sewer camera survey?
On any Bay Area home of a certain age, yes. Clay laterals with mature street trees above them are a well-known problem here, and a blocked or collapsed lateral is one of the more expensive things you can inherit with a house. The camera is the only way to see joint separation, root intrusion and bellies before they announce themselves.
Can you inspect a house before my contingency period ends?
That is one of the main things we do. Tell us your deadline when you call. We target a 30-minute response and average around 15 minutes, and we schedule around the contingency date wherever we can. Access is usually arranged through your agent, and the report goes out as soon as it is written.
Do you charge extra for nights, weekends or holidays?
No. We do not add overtime charges, ever. The rate you are quoted is the same whether we come out on a Tuesday morning or at 2am on a holiday weekend.
Are you licensed and insured?
Yes. Power Plumbing USA holds California contractor license #1082507 and carries full liability insurance. All work is performed to California Plumbing Code, and we pull permits where the job requires them.
Where We Provide This Service
We cover 15 Bay Area cities from our Union City base. See the full service area →