Austin, TXGeneral contractorMarch 2026
Offset clay joint under a live East Austin loading dock
Mixed-use retail shell, East Austin near Springdale · CCTV Pipeline Inspection
The problem
The GC was three weeks from turnover on a retail shell and the building sewer kept surcharging into the loading dock trench drain after every rain. Two prior contractors had rodded the line and called it clear. Nobody had put a camera on it, so nobody could tell the owner whether the problem was inside the building, in the private lateral, or in the City main.
Our approach
- Set up on the downstream cleanout and ran a self-leveling CCTV crawler upstream through the full building sewer, logging footage marks at every defect
- Coded each observation to NASSCO PACP so the structural calls could be defended to the owner and the City
- Sonde-located the offset joint and paint-marked the dig window on the dock slab
- Verified the City tap and downstream main so responsibility was settled before anyone priced a repair
What the camera found
- Heavily offset joint at 61 ft with visible soil infiltration, coded PACP JOM/JOL
- Longitudinal crack running roughly 4 ft upstream of the offset in 6-inch vitrified clay
- Standing water measured at 22 percent of pipe diameter, confirming a sag rather than a blockage
- City tap and downstream main verified clear, moving responsibility onto the private lateral
Measurable results
- Defect sonde-located and paint-marked on the surface, so the repair crew dug one 8 ft pit instead of trenching the full run
- PACP-coded report and HD video sent the same afternoon, which the owner's rep accepted without a second opinion
- Post-repair re-scope documented a clean, correctly graded line and closed out the punch item before turnover
- Footage inspected
- 184 ft
- Defects coded
- 7
- Report delivered
- Same day
- Excavation avoided
- ~120 ft
