CCTV survey: $300–$750
Stands alone and is credited against the works by most operators. Without it nobody can price a liner honestly.
We camera the line first, show you what is actually wrong, and then tell you whether relining is the right answer. Often it is. Where the pipe has collapsed or lost its fall, it is not, and we will say so rather than sell you a liner that disappoints.
A resin-saturated liner is drawn into the existing pipe through an access point, inflated so it presses against the wall, and cured until it hardens. What you are left with is a continuous pipe inside the old one, with no joints along its length and a slightly smaller bore than the original.
Nothing is excavated, and the cured surface is smoother than the clay or concrete it lines, so flow is typically maintained or improved despite the small loss of diameter. On a property where a driveway, mature garden or paving sits over the line, that is the whole argument.
A listing does not stop you repairing a drain. What it restricts is change that is visible or that disturbs significant fabric, which is precisely what a trenchless repair avoids.
In practice that makes relining the path of least resistance on a listed or conservation-area property: nothing is removed, nothing changes above ground, and there is no reinstatement to get approved.
Kitchens along the Ramsay Street strip send fats and food waste into drains that build up and block without regular clearing.
For a shop, café or clinic the real cost of a drainage repair is rarely the invoice. It is the days the doors do not open, and an excavation through a floor or a car park is measured in days.
A liner is installed from an existing access point and cures in hours, which is why commercial work is so often scheduled overnight or across a single closed day. The trading interruption is usually the deciding factor, not the price per metre.
Properties on a slope often have long drainage runs, sometimes crossing the whole block to reach the main. The practical questions are where the inspection openings are and whether the liner can be drawn through in one length or needs a second access.
That is worth establishing before quoting. A single long run costs less per metre than the same distance broken into stages, and the difference is decided by access, not by the pipe.
An open joint leaks in both directions. On a low-lying block that means stormwater and groundwater entering the sewer through cracks, which is called infiltration, and it quietly overloads a line that would otherwise cope.
Large established gardens shed leaves and silt that wash into gullies and stormwater drains, clogging them over time.
It shows up as a system that backs up in wet weather and behaves perfectly in dry. If that is the pattern, sealing the run is the fix, and no amount of clearing will reproduce the result.
People are often surprised that a drain laid before the war is a relining candidate rather than a replacement. Age alone does not decide it. A clay line with a sound barrel and tired joints is close to the best case for a liner.
The cases that genuinely need excavation are different: a collapsed section, a run that has lost its fall, or a pipe crushed out of round. A camera separates those in an hour, and the answer changes the cost by a multiple.
A food premises line narrows with hardened fat long before it fails structurally. Relining a greased line without addressing the grease simply gives you a smooth new surface to coat, and the interval to the next problem barely changes.
The right sequence is jet it clean, camera it properly, and then decide. If the barrel is sound the answer may be a service schedule rather than a liner. Where the camera shows cracks or open joints under the build-up, relining is worth doing and the smoother bore genuinely slows re-accumulation.
A relined sewer is a genuine asset at sale, and a documented one is worth more than an undocumented one. Keep the certificate, the invoice and both camera runs together with the property file.
If you are buying into an older property in Haberfield, a pre-purchase camera survey of the sewer is one of the cheapest pieces of due diligence available and one of the least often done.
Stands alone and is credited against the works by most operators. Without it nobody can price a liner honestly.
The usual Sydney range for domestic sewer. Access and junction reinstatement are normally quoted separately.
One defect in an otherwise sound run. The proportionate answer on stable ground, and the wrong answer on a line with twenty tired joints.
Where the camera shows the same failure repeating along the length. Ends the problem rather than relocating it.
The honest comparison. Cheaper on an open lawn, rarely cheaper under a driveway, paving or a building.
Indicative Sydney ranges for 2026. Your job is quoted in writing after the camera survey. Figures here are indicative of the 2026 Sydney market rather than a quote from us, you get your own number as a fixed price before any work starts.
Send it through and we will come back with what it is likely to be, what the survey costs, and whether relining is even the right conversation.
Ring us or leave your details. You will get a time for the inspection, not a price invented over the phone.
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