Plumbers in North Mountain

What’s under the front yard of a 1970s house? Usually a sewer lateral that nobody has looked at since it was buried, running beneath trees planted the year the house was new. North Mountain’s neighborhoods spread out below the North Mountain and Shaw Butte preserves from the 1960s into the 1980s, and above ground they’ve aged well: mature canopy, settled yards, quiet streets. Those same trees are the reason the pipe beneath them is worth a look.

A typical home inspection runs the faucets, flushes the toilets, and peers under the sinks. It rarely puts a camera in the main line. So buyers inherit whatever roots, sags, and cracked joints are down there, and meet them the first time the house fills up for a holiday. A video pipe inspection before closing costs little next to a sewer line repair after it, and the footage gives you something concrete to negotiate with.

Inside, the supply pipe is mixed. Copper is common; galvanized still turns up in older homes and in the leftover stubs of past remodels. Strong pressure everywhere except one bathroom points to a stretch of old steel feeding it. Our rundown of warning signs worth a call sorts what needs attention now from what can go on the list for later.