The 4" cast exited the crawl space and dove down with a 45 or 60 degree bend within 3'. I expected that, as the house sits nearly 25' above the adjacent street where there is a 4" plastic cleanout that I believed to attach to the house sewer. It traveled ~25' at that angle before turning back horizontal, and within a few feet transitioned to plastic. After a few more feet, I could see the 2 way CO tee for the aforementioned cleanout. Shortly past that, the plastic 90'd down, and then 90'd back flat and immediately transitioned to 6" clay. I made it 2' into the 6" clay before I hit some pretty bad roots, and could get no further.
The cast looked to be in pretty good shape, although it is starting to show some scale buildup. None of the scale appears to be collecting paper or solids, so it isn't really a problem as of yet. Minor root intrusion at the transition from cast to plastic at 30'. All of the plastic looks to be in good shape, with no evidence of bellies or breakage. There is a bit of root intrusion at the plastic/cast transition at 50', and then the heavier roots I mentioned at 52'.
The camera head hung just the tiniest bit at the first downturn in the cast, and a little bit more at the turn to horizontal, but nothing problematic. The downturn to the plastic chimney gave me a little bit more problem, I had to pull back and bump that once to get through. The turn back horizontaljust before the transition to clay required another pull back and bump. To get the last 2' in the clay required a very determined pull back and bump, more than one, to get out to the 52' mark.
I ran two of the finned ball guides that came with the camera, one just behind the head itself and a 2nd perhaps 4" back on the spring. That allowed me a pretty good all around view of the pipe. Ridgid also sent 2 of the star shaped guides with it, but it seems to me that they would tend to drag and hang up pretty quickly. Anyone have any good experiences with the star shaped guides?
I need some more experience with this system in a wider variety of pipe materials, sizes, and amount/type of fittings, but so far I am liking it. I have an inspection to do, probably one evening next week, to look for the source of roots in a house drain line, and then as soon as I can get a weekend open I have a real test for it. A house with what sounds like a mixture of PVC and cast, the kitchen/laundry line is gurgling, and it sounds as though an remodel on a bathroom was hacked, as a previous plumber's snake came back up in the shower when it was sent down the roof vent.
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