Sewer Lateral Camera Inspection Limitations Explained with Chuck Lambert

In this podcast episode 37 I am joined by Chuck Lambert of Sunrise Inspection Services & Orange County Sewer Inspections.

Chuck had some constructive criticism of a sewer video i posted on facebook so he reached out to me and shared some great information from his experience inspecting sewer lateral pipes. In return i invited him to be a guest on the podcast to get into some straight talk about real life on the job sewer line inspection experiences.

Between the both of us this podcast is packed with tons of helpful information and interesting sewer inspection stories for all to enjoy.

Follow Chuck On IG @suninsp and @orangecountysewerinspections

Websites:
https://www.sunriseinspectionservices.com/
https://www.orangecountysewerinspection.com/

Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home. Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast Alright everybody, welcome back to another episode of home inspection authoritys Straight Talk podcast with me, John laforme. I'm a CREIA certified home inspector from Los Angeles, California. And the topics we discuss on this podcast are about buying homes, selling homes, inspecting homes. So if you're a home inspector, home buyer, real estate professional, this podcast is definitely for you. All right, I'm sitting here today. It's early morning podcast. And I'm sitting with Chuck Lambert. How're you doing? Chuck?

Chuck Lambert: 0:46

good about yourself.

John Laforme: 0:48

Not bad is our first time meeting. Yep. 9am on a Saturday morning, but why don't you tell everybody? How we came in touch?

Chuck Lambert: 0:59

Um, I was, I think it was Facebook, or whatnot.

John Laforme: 1:03

Probably. Yeah,

Chuck Lambert: 1:04

you had posted something about doing a sewer inspection. And you were, I think in the in the body of the description, oh, I, you know, I do the best I can. I'd like to help the clients out even given the depth and all that jazz of the sewer system. And my response to you is, you know what? Sounds great, but you might not want to give the depths out.

John Laforme: 1:29

Right, right. Right. That was interesting. And the reason for that is because your home inspector and you will also see the inspector correct. And what's the name of your company

Chuck Lambert: 1:36

sunrise inspection services, and the subsidiary of that is Orange County sewer inspections.

John Laforme: 1:42

And we you mainly work out of

Chuck Lambert: 1:46

South Orange County, North Orange County, so I live in the Fountain Valley and basically go is far north. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was there in Hollywood. You know, don't like to go too far past

John Laforme: 1:59

you didn't wave at me when you went by twice said Hollywood or North Hollywood. North Hollywood. Yeah, that's right next door.

Chuck Lambert: 2:08

And then as far south as, you know, Carlsbad and Oceanside and stuff like that.

John Laforme: 2:14

Yeah, sometimes I go out of my butt. Like two weeks ago, I went to Lake Arrowhead on because it was a realtor that I know really well who I've been working with for five six years and he goes ham buying a cabin. Do you mind driving out that like

Chuck Lambert: 2:29

arrowheads? The furthest up the mountain? I'll go I've gotten a big bear a couple of times and it just the extra 30 miles of the windy road just drives me nuts.

John Laforme: 2:37

Yeah, so yeah, it's just a it's a long drive. But at the end of the day, everywhere I go. Excuse me, everywhere I go is an hour. If I have to get if I have to get out in North Hollywood, it probably take me an hour. You never know.

Chuck Lambert: 2:49

Yeah, well, duh. We were in North Hollywood last weekend. And two hours and 27 minutes to get home. And that was Saturday. Just hanging out. No, we're doing a reinspection on to four units. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Not my favorite thing to do. So

John Laforme: 3:07

I got a call yesterday for 17 units. I said not interested.

Chuck Lambert: 3:12

Really? Yeah. Why not too much work. It is but it isn't. It's rewarding.

John Laforme: 3:18

I by myself,

Chuck Lambert: 3:20

no, no, no, no. You always have somebody come with you anything I don't

John Laforme: 3:23

have anybody like that right now. So really No, I don't have I don't have a close confidant that that's going to use the same type of software I use that can actually do it right. And you know, I've had other guys come on before and then we'll use a different software and then it was kind of last minute so I didn't have a chance to prepare to get them on my software. And it was just I had to do a lot of extra work.

Chuck Lambert: 3:46

Yeah, there's other ways we do there's a group of about four of us and we do anywhere from Oh, inspection wise we do probably one a month it's 8000 square foot or above or at the most we've done is 150 units. So I either call him or he either calls me go back and forth but how

John Laforme: 4:08

do you handle that? I'm just curious how do you handle 150 units

Chuck Lambert: 4:11

that one there are particular the company he was doing the work for we did every single unit Wow. So I go in each one of us goes in with a specific job I did all the mechanical and the sub panels and then one guy goes in and does the all the windows and the doors and one guy goes in and does it you know smart so and the person I work with Sam he is very methodically comes up with what he calls sheets so everything you know he can't read my writing but hey, it's on their heads down so it gets inspected here and

John Laforme: 4:46

I see this handwriting it yeah and then what we do

Chuck Lambert: 4:49

afterwards is we put it all together so on the bigger homes, he uses he carries a computer so what on the like a 15,000 square foot house him and I will do the outside The house right together, do the pool in the spot together the main panel, and then he'll start on after that he'll start upstairs doing the interior. And then I'll go back and do all the HVAC and everything from there. So and he enters it in the computer as we're doing it. So,

John Laforme: 5:19

okay, so someone's got to do in the admin work. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, ultimately, in a situation, that's a good, that's a good just, it's a good protocol that you guys are using there. However, having a software that you all can tag into and just ding ding, ding, it's done. We need to leave.

Chuck Lambert: 5:36

Yeah, that's the idea. Well, it is on his on his and it is on me when I do it. It's I'm doing it on paper. Right. So it's much quicker for me. And we've been doing it that way for 15 years before software. Yeah. No. I had software, I started out a 3d version 5.0. Now I'm version 12. Something.

John Laforme: 5:57

Yeah, I use. I use spec Torah software. And it's to me, it's like the Cadillac of software. It's just really, it's just really helpful and really streamline. So I'm pretty happy with it. But yeah, that's, that's, that's a great lead in right there. Which is how many units was

Chuck Lambert: 6:14

so that was 150. It was 147.

John Laforme: 6:16

And how many hours did it take you or days?

Chuck Lambert: 6:19

We were there. There's three of us there think two days. Right? So we get it down? We get it? It's it's not blow and go. But it's it's definitely going in and doing a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of work. It's it. It is a lot of work. At the end of the day, you're like, oh, but it it's also there's times where you wish you did it. And there's times you wish you didn't. So

John Laforme: 6:45

I've had too many times where I wish I didn't Yeah, but the thing is, when I get into it, I'm like, oh, it's gonna be a nightmare. And the the most annoying part of it is the people hiring you have no fucking clue as to the length of time this takes and they just have this unrealistic expectation. Oh, yeah. What's gonna take you? Half a day? I'm like, half a day. Yeah, this 15 units here. Yeah, you understand what I'm doing? They really don't understand what we have to look at. Electrical, there's a sub panel and each unit. You know, the each unit has its own mechanical a track, it's, there's so much to do in there.

Chuck Lambert: 7:21

Yeah, and some, but some clients do know. And most of the, the savvy ones do. The ones that really that I stay away from is when they call in, they said we want to do a sampling. That one's a little bit difficult. I'll do sampling with the sewer inspections. What do you mean sampling? Where they only want you to do every other unit? Or, you know, right? They want you to skip this one or skip that one. Right? I have a company that I do sewer inspections for and they buy their average is 320 units, 350 units. And they want sampling they want every other or every third sewer line done. And I always try to talk them out of it. And they're like, No, we don't want to pay for every one on paper. You know, it's like looking

John Laforme: 8:06

at one side of the wall without looking at the other side of the wall. It just doesn't make any sense. I'm right there with you. Because to me, if we're trying to be thorough, and give an honest assessment of the property, we got to look at everything. Yeah, it's all connected somehow. Yep. And that's Yeah, so I kind of stray from that too. Oh, can you do a better price and just do less? No, ma'am. Why do you want me to come if you just don't want me to look at everything? I mean, what's the point? Save your money? Yep. And just wait for this shit to start happening? And then you can just call plumbers. Yeah. Well, while we get a call,

Chuck Lambert: 8:38

I've also found that the older I get the I'm a better helper than I am. Yeah. Because I'll call Sam and say, Hey, you want this with? No, because I'll help you, you know, but we paid the average $100 an hour, so I pay him $100 an hour, he pays me $100 an hour. So sometimes it's like, hey, it's nice to go out and make $4,000 in a day. Sometimes it's nice to go up, make 800 bucks and be done with it and drive home and yes, hanging out. Yeah, yeah.

John Laforme: 9:05

Well, hey, now that we know each other, if a big job like that comes up, maybe I'll hit you up and help you. You want to come up and do something together. And because I need somebody Yeah, that's still into it. still sharp. Had a couple people in the past helped me out with stuff. And it was more of a worry than anything.

Chuck Lambert: 9:25

Some of them can be some of them. So

John Laforme: 9:30

main reason why I invited you today was to go over sewer lines. And there's a lot of reasons for that. First of all, I want to thank you for the tips. You gave me some good tips over the phone on some great tools. And I did I did listen, I'm a good listener. And I did purchase the tools. And it has made a life quite a bit simpler since since I got those because I had a couple of situations where without them would not have got the caps off. Yep, there's no way and using the the rigid impact gun, I use that for the first time the other day because I didn't need it until the other day. And I wasn't aware of how much torque that thing had. Yep. And so, Reg d cap, I had all the cap was half broken already. So I had to be real careful already. These were, these were caps that were flush with the driveway. It was several and it was really big house and they were females, female caps. So I'm like, okay, and one of them was brass, somebody put a brass one on the ABS pipe,

Chuck Lambert: 10:37

you got to watch those, those the tool set that I told you about, sometimes the it doesn't quite fit in the brass in there. Yeah, the bigger one is too long. And the smaller one is just you look at it and going.

John Laforme: 10:52

I'm gonna hit that guy up and ask him to make a better one. Because the these female, the female fittings for that for that bid. It definitely did not fit right. It was too much play in there. And that's why it probably get damaged. Yeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna send them a cap, and I'm going to send them to bid and say this is a square peg round hole. We need to tighten this up. I'm sure he can make a better version of that. Yeah, yeah, quite sure. So I'm gonna send that to him just for the hell of it. And I'm gonna say hey, here's a here's a short little video about your product that works great. I'll he'll be happy to hear that. So. So yeah, those tools were great. And was like I said, I was I was working on a brass brass cap. And I started using it and it started loosening up, right, and then all of a sudden start shaking it and in the brass split right down the middle. I was like, damn, but I carry extras on the van or you

Chuck Lambert: 11:40

carry extra brass? I carry extra plastic. Oh, yeah. The brass ones are about 30 bucks apiece. Yeah.

John Laforme: 11:44

And I'm not replacing them. I don't know who put that there was no need to put that. Yeah, so

Chuck Lambert: 11:48

and then they tighten them down to 4000 pounds of torque. And it's ridiculous.

John Laforme: 11:53

It's like It's like the the ABS plastic cleanouts sticking up out of the ground. And they clamp on the rubber. When you clamp on the rubber on for you want it to spill outside. It's, it's I just loosen them up and I leave them loose and I just leave the clamp there. Because you don't even need that. Why don't need, why don't I need that they want because it's pointing up at the sky. And if it backs up, you want it to drain here not in your house. Exactly. That's the point of it. So so this particular house that I've used that impact wrench on this house is about 6000 square feet. So I anticipated at least two to three cleanouts I would have had to go in to get out to the street because it was a sprawling property. And as soon as I go in I probably a puppy in there. 15 feet, and I'm hitting water. I'm like, nah, this ain't good. So I keep pushing on maybe just a little belly in one area. So I keep pushing, pushing 60 feet still underwater. So I'm pulling my locator go find it just across the driveway. I'm like, Ah, shit. Now we're turning right. push past that point. Now the 1020 feet still underwater, comes out of water for about two feet goes back onto water. Most of the pipe was flat or slanted backwards. sloped back, which it was completely full. There was no blockage. I made it all the way out.

Chuck Lambert: 13:08

This is the way it is sometimes, you know, my average is 80 to 92% of problems. Yep. So you know whether it's an offset or bellies. The fun ones are the bellies in the cast iron where you can't see. Right, you know, you go four inches forward, pull it to two inches back four inches forward, pull it two inches back, because you don't want it to fall in a hole. Yeah, holes in the hole, then you're gonna start digging. Yep. Not gonna get it back.

John Laforme: 13:38

Right. And oh, you mean like a break in the pipe? Yeah, yeah.

Chuck Lambert: 13:42

But I have a friend of mine who works for the city of Brea. And he says, Well, he goes, he goes, he always tells me Chuck, he goes, if it's holding water. He goes, there's not a hole in it. Yeah, but if it's, you know, if it's holding water, I've seen plenty of them where the hole is just full. You know, but there's plumbers that say there's, there's, there's ways you can get around it. You can you can drop a bunch of marbles down there. And the marbles will fill in the hole and then you can skate across the top of it.

John Laforme: 14:10

You may now I gotta go by marbles.

Chuck Lambert: 14:13

You know what? I'm not gonna because I'll push the camera right up to the hole. Look at the picture of the hole and go like, yeah, there's a camera in there. I'm not gonna get my camera stuck in there. But if you actually if you absolutely have to go past it, you throw a bunch of marbles down into the marbles and fill in the hole on the cameras gate right across the top of it. Interesting, but not but just don't tell anybody.

John Laforme: 14:31

Yeah, no, I'm not telling anybody. I won't post this on Facebook either. So have you gotten stuck in a check valve yet?

Chuck Lambert: 14:40

No. I've come up to a couple of them in looked at the camera and going like what the hell is that and you push on it. And then you push on it again in about the second time you push it on you realize, oh, maybe I shouldn't do that. It's a trap door.

John Laforme: 14:56

Yeah, yeah. And it's a trap. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So A couple times, you know, sometimes you push and you push in the camera and then right away your lens just gets covered with fucking debris and shit. And you're like off, I just start flushing right away just to get a clear view. I record on the way in and on the way out. Yeah. And the reason why I do that a lot of guys don't do that. The reason why I do that is because I found that a lot of times my camera clears blockages, and I want the customer to see that you know what this pipe was partially blocked when I got here and my camera cleared it. You're welcome. You know what I mean? So it's like, that's why I want to do that. And then I like to get cool stuff from my YouTube channel. One time I pushed out and it wasn't recording and I get right to the city, Seattle, and a rat walked right by my camera. That would have been a good one. Yeah, that'd been a great content for you too. But I missed out on it. So well, I do have to prove that

Chuck Lambert: 15:51

I was in the line. So right you Yep. And then certain cities that I worked for that I do work for they require the the address in the video? Oh, wow. So okay, because I've had times where I had one instance, in particular where the the listing agent was there. I swung the camera around, actually had to ask her to move. So she wouldn't be in the video, put the camera in, ran a camera down, pulled it back. And the whole time she was over my shoulder. This is fascinating. This is great, you know, I can't believe is that. And then two days later, the homeowner calls me says that's not my sewer line. I was like, Well, what do you mean is not yours? He goes, Why paid $16,000 They haven't replaced? And I said no. I said you replaced there's a forefoot section right there. You paid$4,000 a foot or four foot to have you know, them dig up your driveway and put four down and the agent wouldn't back me up on it. And she was just like she was no she was I didn't know what I was looking at. I'm like you're jumping around like a little school girl thing. And we're all excited. Yeah. And so I don't care if the videos four minutes long, right? Or 40 minutes long. The cameras on the whole entire time it's down in there. So like you said for the good YouTube things. I dropped in on one actually got the video of here for you have a lizard. And you know, I had a guided tour all the way down to the city.

John Laforme: 17:23

Nice. What I could do with that is I can take that, like get that from you by email or whatever. And then I can add it to our video. Yeah, so people can watch what you're talking. Yeah. So what I ran into a similar situation, but not with a complaint back to me. You know, a guy says, hey, you know, I just had a whole bunch of plumbing work done on the house. And I want to get it scoped and I want the house inspected as well. So okay, so sir, would it what did you have replaced? This is uh, this is this is all in the words. Because oftentimes I show up to homes as a home inspector. And like, oh, yeah, all the plumbing has been redone. Well, can you be more specific? There's water supply, there's drain, there's gas piping, which which of the three you talking about? Oh, they said everything. I'm like, okay. Everything's everything. So I should see nothing but shiny new copper, I see in our packs or whatever. And I go into there and this, this poor guy paid like $15,000. They said they replaced all the drain pipe under his house. They left 20 to 30 feet of leaking cast iron under his house. It was actually filled with sewerage when I get in there very concerned my robot in there. I said, Sir, I got bad news for you. I felt bad. Because he did. Those guys already came and left. And he's like, wow, I showed him that. I showed the pictures. He was like I said you actually have sewage under your house right now.

Chuck Lambert: 18:49

Yeah. About 15% of my work is doing rechecks of other people's stuff. Yeah. I was doing an inspection on a house in Costa Mesa. The young couple of first time homebuyers. You know, you want to do a sewer? No, they said it was realigned. Dad was there get the sewer done. The daughter was like no, finally the dad said we'll pay for it. So I dropped the camera in and right at the beginning of the sewer at the the liner it had separated from the pipe so it raised up. So now it's going under the liner or catching right there. I get down about 16 feet. And the bottom of the liner looked like the mobile run at Mammoth Mountain. It was it was 60 feet a day all the way down. They the owners had paid$11,000 To put it in. I didn't verify and when they were it's all said done $16,000 The augered all out and redo it. So you know a lot of people and I get associations condo association shins, say, hey, we had a sewer inspection done. That guy didn't provide us with any video or any pictures or anything like that. And they say we need $7,000 for the work. And I'll drop the camera and then they stand right there and watch it and it's just, you know, you're going along and there's one little tiny offset and that's it. So, unfortunately, you know, there's a lot of unscrupulous people out there. And

John Laforme: 20:22

yeah, yeah, and what what the homebuyers out there listening need to understand is the pipe we're talking about you can't see it without a camera right? So if you want to take someone's word Then why haven't us inspect the house once you just take their word on that too? That everything's fine on the house? Yeah, it's the same thing. You know, this is a underground pipe that it's the worst case scenario part of the hurt that the most expensive repair I've heard on a sewer line is like 30 35,000

Chuck Lambert: 20:52

And we got you beat on that one.

John Laforme: 20:53

Yeah, that's that's the most expensive one I've been a part of like someone's told me by the way the quote was like 3035 Grand Forks that

Chuck Lambert: 21:00

the one of the highest we've done is 96,000 and that was a bigger house and 93 9300 9600 square foot house

John Laforme: 21:09

so that's about way above average Yeah,

Chuck Lambert: 21:11

they actually put the pipe in wrong so there was just all kinds of things wrong with the plumber was there for almost three weeks redoing the whole entire sewer system and this is up in Newport Coast. So is a big project in there the lines up there deep you know they're coming out of the street 2627 feet deep. Wow. Yeah, there wait.

John Laforme: 21:33

That is a big dig right there. Yeah, yeah, there are 27 But that's, that's

Chuck Lambert: 21:38

yeah, those ones I don't like doing those because it gets convoluted, but you're out there trying to locate it's out of the range of the locator. It's like the locators like screaming at you going like No, no Not gonna work nothing

John Laforme: 21:49

here. And a big problem to nowadays is ad use sewer lines with AD use. Oftentimes, I inspect homes with an ad use and I tell them you know, we gotta check that I gotta check that sewer from from the adu out. I got to start in the back and go out. I have to Oh, really? I'm like, yeah, so if you want me to want this done, right, I gotta do that. Yeah, many times their pitch strong. The slope is going backwards towards the adu because the grades different. No one thought it out well enough when they were installing everything and nobody checked it. So it's probably an unpermitted adu nothing got nothing that signed off on correctly, the plumbing was a mess. And what they did in one situation recently, and this was in North Hollywood, they put a sewer injector pump back there, just to shoot because it was like 80 feet. The adu is here. The house was here and the line came around the side of the house. 80 feet of it out. It was just filled with water. So they put it the simplest thing to do instead of digging everything up.

Chuck Lambert: 22:55

They said, we'll just force it down. Yeah, we'll

John Laforme: 22:57

just force it out. So I'm like, so the realtor had called me and said, Hey, we're gonna do a sewer injector pump. What do you think of that? I said, Well, that's one way of dealing with it. Hmm, is that kind of is that enough to push out at 100 feet? I don't know. Yeah. I said I can't answer that. You know, but I'd rather dig it up. Or you said dig it up and do it right. And then you're done with it. Do it right and you're done with it. Why why count on another another device to do something? That's just you just put it I don't know. It's kind of I know she rejected pumps unnecessary in some in some homes on because the way it's the way it was built and designed, but if you don't need one, why Pomona? Yeah, it looks like

Chuck Lambert: 23:37

the backflow preventers. You've you've you asked about that. Have you gotten stuck in one.

John Laforme: 23:42

Know what I was getting out with that was I there's been a few times where I almost did don't get me wrong truck. There's definitely been some close calls. And the most recent one, I had so much shit on the lens and I just had a hard time getting it off no matter how many times I flushed. I went right past one had no idea. And then on the way back when I got to the city, I dip the camera in the city and they cleaned it off. And I started pulling backwards and then I saw oh my gosh, this could have been a really bad day.

Chuck Lambert: 24:11

Yeah. Well, the thing is, it gets

John Laforme: 24:13

stuck open it when I push through, it gets stuck open. So it was open. But I saw it when I came back. Well, that's

Chuck Lambert: 24:20

good. But they're also supposed to be 100% accessible. Yes. So I did one in San Juan Capistrano where I was going and the sun was glaring on the screen. And this is one I tapped on a tapped on the door. I'm like, what, what is that? You know, if there's Sun's glare on the screen of the camera or the monitor, I'm like, you know, I'm like, Oh, that's a Backflow Preventor and so I grabbed the locator went and found it and it's underneath the sidewalk. No access.

John Laforme: 24:56

Oh, wow. So let me explain real quick what a what a check valve or a bat Backflow Preventor is for people listening because they probably a lot of people just don't probably don't know what that is. So typically those are installed when the street is higher than the house. So in the event, the city overflows, and it goes up into your your line that's connected, it's not going to go back into your house, there's a valve there, that'll stop it, and from getting from getting all the way into your house. So that's what those are, and they're installed inside the pipe. You can't see them unless you put a camera in there. But like Chuck just said, there needs to be accessible. So there should be a clean out right with that thing connects so that you can pull the cap off and look down and actually get past it too. If you want. There should be there should be another set of the check valves here. Clean out should be right about here. So you can see the door.

Chuck Lambert: 25:46

Yeah, and then the any clean out upstream of a backflow preventers supposed to be marked. Well, that leads to Backflow Preventor. Also, I've never seen that. Yeah, the Coto De Caza. In trabuco Canyon, they have a lot of them in there on the second, they're usually just do the second stories. I don't know why they they protect the second story. So you'll go into the garage, there'll be a vault in the garage, you'll see one clean out. And then right next to it, you'll see the Backflow Preventor.

John Laforme: 26:16

And what's the what's the average age of the homes down there?

Chuck Lambert: 26:19

Probably the mid 80s 90s. Okay, you know, it ranges, you know, there's there's brand new stuff all the way to the 80s. The. And then, as far as the backflow preventers two, most of them come out. You can pull them out. Yeah, I've seen that the other night, take a picture of it, make sure you put it back in. But I've run into situations where I'm sure you have out here to where you're running the camera out in the camera doesn't drop into the city, it actually is level with the city. Yes. Okay. In on those situations, I always tell the client that you're best off to put a Backflow Preventor in on the outside of the house right by the right around where you know, we're clean out should be. So that way when the city backs up, it won't back up in your house because I have a friend of mine in Huntington Beach where it's happened twice. Run the camera out and the camera just dry. It just goes right into the city. And you can see it you're like am I in? Yeah, you're about four feet in and there's water in the pipe and you're like what's going on here. And then it doesn't drop into the city. It just goes level with it. And he's on a corner. He's on the corner, right? So everything comes down around the corner, and it slows up in the corner. And it's come into his house twice, saying you need to put backflow preventers to stop that.

John Laforme: 27:34

Yeah, that's, that's that's a good one. Yeah, cuz because you know, sometimes if it's depending on where the house is on the street, it may not be a lot of flow in there either. Right? So you just like, Where the hell am I and then pull back and pull bang, you gotta figure it out. It's like, I don't like these like that thing too much.

Chuck Lambert: 27:50

There's two things you don't want to do in the sewer camera. You don't want to push it hard enough to where all of a sudden you see that blue line? Or I don't know what color the light would you have a religion? Yeah, so you have orange? Oranges. Yeah, you don't want to see that orange line. You don't want the camera to come back around? And what's that orange things in their minds blue. You don't want to have seen it twice or three times you push the camera turns around, it's blue. You know? And that's that's a pretty, pretty good pucker factor. And when you're pulling it back, it stopped. But right, that's like, Okay, what's going why? It went in? Why is it not coming out? What's it stuck on? So? Yeah, you know, that's not a fun. Yeah, feeling that can be

John Laforme: 28:30

can be a major drag. So you know what, what advice would you give to somebody looking to buy a house right now as far as sewer? How do you how do you pitch them? Look, you got to do a sewer? What What's your you know, the

Chuck Lambert: 28:41

funny thing is, is I don't I don't I don't try to talk him into it or talk him out of it. I'm honest with him. I was like, Look, 88 to 92% have problems. And they're like, Well, you know, because there's some people running around a lot of oh, it's older home, you got to do the older home, no newer homes, just the newer homes. You got a tile setter that his boss just came in to disaster out. He's got a half a pound of grout left the end of the day down a drain it goes. You know, I've seen it seen a couple times. So the new stuff needs it just as bad as the old stuff. And I just I'm honest with them. So look, it's 88 to 92% of problems. If you want me to do it, I'd be more than happy to if you don't want it I completely understand. I said it is an extra fee. I do know that most people are strapped when they're buying a house and stuff like that. But is it important? Yes, it is very important. You know, and it's I'm not a oh my god your house is gonna you know, this and that. It's not not in the scare tactics and stuff like that. It's just honestly it's like, look, I have the equipment the equipment's here. You want me to do it. I'd be more than happy to do it for you.

John Laforme: 29:50

Yeah, yeah, I don't get the alarmists feel from you. Yeah, I you pretty sound pretty straightforward. Like me. I just like hey, you know it's if you have X ray eyes, you can put You see what's going on. But I and

Chuck Lambert: 30:01

the funny thing is, though is I am hearing I'm switching gears going more and more and more towards the sewer inspections.

John Laforme: 30:08

I was going to ask you that too. So you've been a home inspector for how many years?

Chuck Lambert: 30:12

This 23rd. year

John Laforme: 30:14

i You live in Korea, Russia? Yeah,

Chuck Lambert: 30:16

I was. I'm not with Korea anymore. I was been with ashy started with Korea was a chapter Orange County Chapter Secretary than Orange County Chapter vice president Orange County Chapter President got the President's Award two years in a row from other president. I go to the Korea meetings when I can I support Korea, I use the Korea contract. I'm very my report is based on the Korea standards of practice. So I'm pretty much same here. You know, I could pretty much nail the standards are. Ya know, that's, but I'm gonna ask you remember right now, there's a few things with Korea that I don't agree with

John Laforme: 31:00

only a few. Um, I have a lot more than that.

Chuck Lambert: 31:04

The biggest one is the the the master inspector, they created a class, they created a class within an organization. And I don't agree with that. Because just what that proves is, somebody took a test and passed the test. Okay, and a lot of the CMIs are going to be held to a higher standard.

John Laforme: 31:28

So I currently I'm currently a Cree inspector. I like it because I like the I like to meetings, a lot of the meetings are pretty helpful. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So you know, the learning, you know, the continued education on it, I think is really important. Because, look, when I'm busy, I'm busy. I don't have time to research what the latest greatest faucet is, or, you know, the latest, greatest plumbing trick or whatever. And when these people come in and share their knowledge. It's helpful.

Chuck Lambert: 31:57

Oh, yeah, definitely. And there's nothing the you get 1415 We used to get 5060 guys in a room and you get different opinions. That's a lot. You know, you get you stand 100 home inspectors in front of a water heater, and you're gonna get 100 different opinions. That

John Laforme: 32:12

seems absolutely right. You know, I always said I always I, when I was I used to, I used to beat the Mid Valley, Vice President Moon Valley Chapter vice president than I was the Mid Valley president. And then, you know, it's I always told everybody when I was there talking, I'd be like, you know, is anybody aware except for me of the amount of knowledge in this room. We don't need a contractor to come in here and teach us stuff. We can teach ourselves stuff. Because there's so many years of this guy's got 5000 inspections under his belt. This guy's got 15,000 inspections under his belt, you know, there's just so much experience in the room. And this job is all about hands on experience. Oh, yeah, definitely. You can look at as many books as you want, and take as many online courses as you want. But until you're out there moving cobwebs out of the way to look at what you're doing and really getting really getting the nitty gritty in there. You're not going to learn anything. Yeah, the

Chuck Lambert: 33:10

unfortunate thing with this one is the older you look, the more the more trustworthy you are. Yeah, you know, that's a hard thing for some of the younger guys coming into, you know, it's like, yeah, you may you know, once you get some age on you yeah, and then the credibility factor goes. Yeah,

John Laforme: 33:29

and then also the one thing I noticed with the with the newer guys and like I understand that just trying to do a good job and I don't really knock that I think it's good that you are trying to do a good job, but they take it a little bit too far. Yeah, and they become Nazis and become Dec Nazis, so they become water heater Nazis, and they just get so into the technical part of it. You know, they're kind of missing the point because they just haven't been doing it long enough. And I hear I hear stories from my relatives. They'll be like, hey, yeah, you're not going to scare my client about that debt car. Yeah, I'm like, Well, I don't think so. Yeah, I'm just going to tell him if it's a safety hazard. Most likely, he's probably as if it's an old deck.

Chuck Lambert: 34:10

Yeah, there's a there's a gentleman that I've been working with for years. His name ever you either love him or you hate him. His name is Peter Walker. He's been beating me up for 25 years. Like I said, either love him or hate him. And he told me one time he says you can tell a client the roof is fucked. Without telling them you know, you go to Salem say what's wrong with the roof you get to pick the color you know, and then they look at you and because yeah, when you get the new roof on there, pick the color. Yeah, you know, so that's true. But you can you can you can tell somebody their their houses, or their potential home is his dozer bait.

John Laforme: 34:51

dozer bait without having heard that

Chuck Lambert: 34:53

without without having them run down the street screaming, you know, said look, it either works or doesn't work.

John Laforme: 34:59

Yeah, I do. did a office presentation for a really good local real estate office that I worked with two or three of their relatives, and they asked me to come in and just give some, I said, Look, I don't want to come in and sell my service. I really do not don't like doing that. But I will come in and give you guys some education on what, what I think you can do to help better set realistic expectations with your customers, because that is the biggest ongoing problem I see every day. And that is the expectations between the realtor and client. And then when I show up are all on three different pages. And that is not good. If you're referring me. So I went over a lot of stuff with them, they took to it. Well, a lot of them did have good questions, good responses. So and that was that was one of them. And it was just like, you gotta you gotta be able to, and their concerns were alarming customers. I said, Well, honestly, a lot of customers alarm themselves, because they had to talk with their dad before they get there, or Uncle Bob. And they just scare the shit out of them. Yeah. So you know, if I was telling them, Look at the age of the house, what year was the house built and then go from there, and then know what to expect in a 1980s house? You know, like, if it's the house is over 30 years old, and it's got concrete tile or Spanish Tile. Hey, the paper may be worn out. You know, it's one thing right there. If it's if it's early 1910 house, it might have a brick foundation. You know, I deal with a lot of that stuff up here. You probably don't see that down in your neighborhood.

Chuck Lambert: 36:26

No, not not brick. It would get in certain areas. Santa Ana has got some older homes. But I wholeheartedly agree with you the unrealistic expectations. Yes, I had a client here in Pasadena. Beautiful home the guys it was a flip. It was like, wow, this is nice. This is really, really nice. It was built in the 40s. They sent my report to their dad who was an engineer in Virginia. And he called me up saying no more. Yeah, he called me up and said I told him not to buy it. And I said why he goes well, he goes because it probably is best to Senate. And I said, Okay, I said You do realize this and you just chased him out of this entire city. And he goes, What do you mean? And I said, 99% of the houses in Pasadena, fall under the age group where there's a potential for asbestos. I said, you just push them out of the whole entire city. Yeah. I said, you know, they're, you know, the alarmist, you know, oh my god, you know, it's like, we're sitting here, where you're at here, you know, it's in the glue. It's in the, it's here. So, you know, um, and some inspectors don't know how to convey that without, you know, Chicken Little disguised

John Laforme: 37:44

because their, their eyes get real big before they started talking. And then everyone gathers around the fire. And it's like, it's like a horror story. Yeah. So yeah, it's, there's no need of that. Inspectors learn how to talk. Because that's all it is. It's just I don't know how to

Chuck Lambert: 38:01

Yeah, and this is this is coming from personal experience. If somebody's arguing with you, while you're talking. Shut up. Let them flap their gums, let them do what their thing. The reinspection we did over here. The contractor called me said he was going to sue me over what I put in a report. He said it was slander and libel. And I said really? I was like, you go you go. I'm like, this is the first time I've ever been, you know, somebody's threatened to sue me because of what I put in the report. When it's true. You know, I'm like, we're not here to destroy your product. We're here to say, You know what, we flip the light switch on. And 14 GFI is in the house tripped, that's a problem and three of them were buzzing, you know, going like that's a problem because well, it's just a loose wire. We'll find it thanks. Exit loose wires birdhouses down we

John Laforme: 38:51

just brought it to your attention. You know, we're just letting me know you overlook something don't get all mad about it. So

Chuck Lambert: 38:57

but you know, it's um, a lot of this a lot of this business is people handling you know, and then the sewers I have fun with the sewers because I just tell them to look is this is a colonoscopy for the house if I could put it on the card I would my kids are like Dad, that's gross. They think you're gonna come to their house and do give them a colonoscopy

John Laforme: 39:19

I mean, basically that's what we're doing. But

Chuck Lambert: 39:22

you know, you don't know unless you take a look right? You know, like you said earlier it's underneath it you know, you can't see it and when it's gonna happen when a problem is going to occur is Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter birthdays, you know, whatever some type of party when everybody's over at the house and here's a problem yeah,

John Laforme: 39:42

yeah. Let's see. Okay, that okay, let's let's get into the depth of the pipe locator, which is why you you first reached out to me now I want to say thank you to you, by the way, because when you did reach out about that you were very nice about it. You weren't trying to be some dick on face.

Chuck Lambert: 39:59

I think I started out with I don't want to be I don't want to sound like a dick but you don't want to hear this. So

John Laforme: 40:03

yeah, as as Facebook is full of some hate and people, man, there's a lot of angry people on Facebook, I'll try to stay off yourself

Chuck Lambert: 40:11

a lot gets lost in the interpretation too. Yeah, so depth. There's, there's two schools of thought on it. There's ones that people are more than happy to give you the depth. If, if you're going to do a dig anywhere, you're supposed to call 811 Regular. Yep. Dig alerts there for a reason to find utilities define, you know, where the gas is where the where the sewer line is, or where you know, all these utilities are. You go and dig and you hit something like that. You're on the hook, whoever's whoever's running the shovel or the excavator or whatever, right is on the hook to fix it. We always hear about, you know, oh, there's excavator over here. Hit a 50,000 pair, fiber optic line, ripped them all out cost, you know, quarter million dollars to fix it out. So the company you use a 5x located right I use the rigid okay, we're just out. So there's a couple of companies out there that produce cameras and locators, there's right calm, there's vive X, there's RIDGID vive X is based in Santa Clara, California. They have a couple of reps down here in the in the Southern California area, and they put on classes and the guy's name Steve Gamblin. He puts on these classes. And he trains the dig alert guys in the city guys in the county guys on how to use locators. So one of the things that, you know, these locators are so sophisticated that they do tell the depth, you know, and they put it in there, you're looking at the screen, the newer, so you use the RIDGID Scout, so that's the one where it beeps, and then you're supposed to drop the triangle, then it goes silent, then it beeps again. Yeah, you gotta

John Laforme: 41:59

you gotta pull here. First poll you got then you find your second poll, and then right in the center.

Chuck Lambert: 42:05

Because of the way, the way the signal comes out, it's oblong, right? And where the signal generates is in the middle. And what the locator is doing is picking up the end and the beginning. Yep. Well, the one I use is like a video game and has an arrow on it. Milwaukee copied it. So you do it'll tell you and then it puts you right here. And then up in the corner, it tells you the depth. And it's pretty accurate. It's accurate with you know, I think it's 2% or something like that if you got a good strong, strong signal. So your natural response is, somebody wants to know how deep it is, oh, it's eight feet nine inches deep. So if you tell them that, okay, and now they got this light, okay, it's eight foot nine inches. Well, Diggler comes out and Diggler does all this stuff. And they mark everything. If you ask a Diggler guy, how deep it is, he'll he'll sit there and respond to you. We don't give depth or they'll say when you hit it, you'll know how deep it is. And the reason being is I actually showed John a couple pictures today. If there's a gas line above the sewer line, right? And you tell them, It's six feet down and they bring an excavator in and that excavator hits that gas line and destroys that gas line. Yep, they're gonna call you if you're still alive. Yeah, you know, they're going to call the one that sits at six foot. So there's, there's, there's times, you know, it's like the old check engine light. Yeah, you know, you put the tape over the top of it. There's times where I just want to put the tape over the top of that because you didn't want to tell you know, as you're locating lineup, the plumbers there in the plumber, you know, a lot of times I get a lot of pushback from plumbers who are like, well, you know, do I need to know how deep it is to start digging, you know how deep it is? It's going to be six, eight foot, you know, whatever.

John Laforme: 43:49

Let me pause you right there because that brings up a good point. So a good counter to that. And so if I was a plumber, if I was a plumbing contractor, and then I received someone's report telling me that a pipe was six feet underground. Me as a, you know, a prudent plumber or someone who's going to do some someone who actually takes his job seriously. I'm not going to take that person's word for it. I'm gonna investigate it myself.

Chuck Lambert: 44:15

Are you kidding me? They don't take our word for it. And they got a whole video.

John Laforme: 44:18

First of all, no way. There's no way I'm just going to start digging. Oh, when the guy said it was right there. Sure. Let's just start digging. I'm not going to I wouldn't do that. I would scope up myself locate it myself. And then determine how to attack it right. So if you're dealing with some knucklehead you hired for because he was half the price. Yeah, he's probably just going to start digging off that information. I just think that's a bad idea. But I get your point. I get your point told me about why it's why it's why it's risky.

Chuck Lambert: 44:45

Yeah, so I just won't do it. And I've had plumbers yell and scream at me and stuff like that. It's like look, do exactly like you just said Come on, you know, I'm like you're gonna investigate it yourself. You're gonna run your camera anyways because you're not going to trust my video. And that's the funny thing is is there's a lot of plumbers that they want Don't give a quote, on fixing the line unless they come out and run their own camera anyways. Sure, you know, they because they want the 300 bucks or 400 bucks or whatever they're going to charge to do the Camera Line, which I don't think is right. That's why I tried to make my report as clear and concise, you know, to help the plumbers, you know, in, you know, whatever. So they can do that. But I get probably one a month will the plumber will how deep is it? I don't know. Well, why didn't you put it on there? Because they're not supposed to? You know, so.

John Laforme: 45:33

So the city training is basically straining their city guys not to not to give out depth. So is that right? Timely? Yeah. So that's just the city?

Chuck Lambert: 45:40

Well, it's the city dig alert, you know, the whole entire deal. If you look on if you go on Diggler website and stuff like that, and you look on all their paperwork is do you give depths, this is no, we do not give depths period. You know,

John Laforme: 45:52

so I think a good thing for anyone's sewers inspection report to add a look, we found a problem in the pipe, it's all about wording in your report, you know, we found a problem in the pipe, it's located here in the yard, I put a flag in the ground. So you can see it or I spray painted the ground to show where the approximate location, the approximate depth is, let's say I say at six feet down the process, approximate depth to six feet. However, we recommend you contact dig safe before any digging is done to make sure that there's no other, you know, important utility lines under the ground there. So I mean, that's kind of a disclaimer right there. You're letting them know, don't just start digging, you need to call you need to call the professionals first and get this make sure it's safe to dig. Yeah. Yes, of course. Now, you know, people that some of the people listening may not get well, it's kind of technical what we'll get into here. So I try to put it in layman's terms as best I can. So I don't get people emailing me going, Hey, man, you left me hanging on, I didn't quite understand that technical part. So So basically, if it what we're trying to get across here is if there's a sewer lateral between the House and the street, and it's six feet underground, and we find a problem at the like the 20 foot mark? Well, we're trying to say that just because the pipe is six feet under doesn't mean there's a pipe, closer pipe to the surface, like a gas pipe, or a water supply pipe or a fiber optics line or something like that. So that's what we're talking about. So you don't just start blindly digging, and just jumping on that shovel. And that goes right to a line or something, you know, so yeah, be careful.

Chuck Lambert: 47:26

There's a lot of things underlying because the, I haven't run across it yet. But I've seen other pictures and stuff like that, where the city comes out in there, they're doing brand new gas lines, and they'll bisect right through a six inch, you know, sewer line, the machine just bores right through the middle of Oh, sure. So, you know,

John Laforme: 47:44

they're they're, they're solid, but they're fragile. You know? Now, let me ask you this, do you get a lot of interference with your locator when you are in certain types of properties

Chuck Lambert: 47:54

on cast iron? The there are in a, there's an Edison vault or something like that. So

John Laforme: 48:03

the hate when that happens, like like even automated gates with the pad that you drive onto the pad and they open? Good luck.

Chuck Lambert: 48:12

Yeah, well, my camera puts out my camera puts out three frequencies, it puts out 512, which is the strongest I use 32.8, and then 640. So if I get one that's kind of that I'm really really questioning on, I'll go find it with the 512 or attempt to find it with the 512 market where I think it is and then go switch the three the 32 and then go do it again. And then double check it. So there. So I don't know if the rigid, I think the rigid just puts out one right

John Laforme: 48:42

now I think there's a couple on there. But I've only used the 512 Yeah. So

Chuck Lambert: 48:45

if you run into it, check it, if it runs, if you run into a situation where you're, it's really like and this is not the greatest locate, or the locate, keep struggling and then take us you know, market where you think it is and then go change the frequency and check it that way. Yeah, cross reference it. And then and then check the depth. I guess if you look at it, and then it's at 512 minutes, 30 feet deep. Now that ain't right, because you're getting interference. Yeah, but if you mark it and the locator says it's 12 and then you change the frequency and it comes back and says it's 12 You're pretty good. You're pretty good on there. Yeah, yeah, that'd

John Laforme: 49:24

be a pretty pretty safe bet. And what about the do you actually pull toilets if you need to?

Chuck Lambert: 49:30

I refuse to pull toilets I don't want anything to do with water with with a potential leak How do you walk into somebody's like this house here at the so if you're selling your house and I come in and oh, well we can't do a sewer I gotta pull your toilet What's your you know? You're not gonna pull the toilet right you know, it's that's that now that now you're getting into an invasive. It's true. You know that's true. I am to be honest with you. I want it nice and easy. If I go on a roof I go and I was on a two story roof yesterday. Wow. You know, so and it was one of those ones where I had to get the ladder, get up there, pull the ladder up, put the ladder on you, you

John Laforme: 50:06

still do that I stopped doing that years ago,

Chuck Lambert: 50:09

you know what, I'm not gonna walk away from it, you know, it's how do I see this?

John Laforme: 50:16

You're already there.

Chuck Lambert: 50:18

You're already there. And you're sitting there looking at it. And I got a picture of it too. So I posted on my Instagram, I'm going like, well, there's the three inch pipe up there. And I know I could drop it in there. Because when I went in the house, there was a three inch stub out in the laundry room. And I looked at the cap, and I'm like, That cap will come off of there, but it's not gonna go back on. And I guarantee is going to leak. So I'm like, do I want that, you know, even even if you put a test plug in there, tighten it up as tight as you can get it because it's an old cast iron. Yeah, pipe sticking out of the wall, all rusted and corroded. Like, you know, I'll just go up on the roof. And you know, and the nice thing with that is, is you also now you have, I don't like doing second stories. But now you have 20 foot of line, pushing the camera head out, too. So it goes out a little bit easier when you especially especially if you come to a to a an offset that you'd have to try to get a little weight to Yeah, it's got to look in not the greatest situation, I wouldn't recommend it for everybody. Because it's that's the only part of doing either the sewers or home inspections. And I absolutely hate getting up on roofs. absolutely hate.

John Laforme: 51:33

I mean I do roof I go through solid time, but I don't I don't have the gear to get up to a second storey roof. If it was a simple matter of getting on the first storey bringing my gear up. And then if it was a little bit of a climb, I wouldn't mind throwing a ladder there.

Chuck Lambert: 51:49

I probably I probably could have climbed that. But it was you know, I mean, when I when I went from the first roof to the second roof, I picked the bucket up and pick the camera and put it on there. But it was just a little bit too tall to you know, climb up

John Laforme: 52:02

and get getting getting back down is the challenge. Getting up is always pretty easy. But when sometimes we don't think about that. Yeah, we put ladders up which coming back down. We didn't we didn't put it high enough above the roof. And you're like, oh shit.

Chuck Lambert: 52:13

Yeah, but you know what, I can't stand it. When it's four foot above the top of the roof. I have a one guy that do a lot one home inspector I do a lot of work with. He's a great guy. He's an ex fireman. So he's, he's one of the ones that it's got to be eight foot above the roof. And I get up to the top of the roof. And I'm like, how do you get off the ladder? You know, I just, it's so bizarre for me, I've been doing it wrong. So long, that it just feels comfortable. And you do it correctly. And it's like this sucks.

John Laforme: 52:41

Yeah. So let's let's set a realistic expectation for people. So if you if you call someone to do a sewer line inspector on your house inspection on your house, there has to be a way in, right. And that is the problem that most are not even considering when they call us. They just think oh, I'm just going to order a sewer camera inspection, it'll get done. It doesn't mean it's gonna get done. There's a lot of challenges, you know, getting into the line, we're trying to get into a four inch lateral. And just because you have a little one inch front of your under your kitchen window or two inch in front, under your kitchen window does not mean that's going to work,

Chuck Lambert: 53:16

right. And there's also just because we can open it doesn't mean it's going to go in. So I've had situations where plumbers have pulled toilets and you still can't get in to you know, there's too many turns. It's an unknown, right. In some of the in your area here. These houses weren't built for him. Nope. You know, the nicest thing. The nice thing is is like probably this neighborhood here they everyone's got a four inch cast iron bent going up through the road. Sure does.

John Laforme: 53:42

Those are that's how I get into mind. Yeah, then I bought this. Yeah. So

Chuck Lambert: 53:45

I've lived in my house for 15 years, and I haven't scoped mine because I only clean out so I refuse to do. I don't want to know. But I bought a camera to do those smaller lines. Yeah. So in those, you know, but that

John Laforme: 54:00

doesn't mean you got to make it. Exactly. That means. Now there's less tensile strength on that line and you can't push harder. Exactly. Yeah. And that's. So let's talk about the realtors who just think they know more than you do about sewer camera inspections, because I'll get tell you a good story here. I went to a duplex. It was a small house. It was one lot with two homes on it, but it's on a corner so it looked like two separate houses. So they hired me to go do the home inspection in the sewer. So I finished the home inspection. And of course, you know, as a home inspector, and I'm doing both I have the upper hand because I'm typically getting into the house so I can tell which way the lines are going and get a better idea of where to look for the clean out access. So it kind of gives you a little bit of a step, a little bit of a better position than just a guy coming to do the sewer line. So I looked at everything, and I found one clean out on the main house and I go to the small house in the back. I don't see anything out side in everything that was visible, it was just too tiny it was all cast iron. So I finished the main line, I found a big root intrusion just before the street on the main house. And then I go go to the smaller house. I tried so hard to get into that line on that small house. I didn't I didn't want to leave there. I was like, I gotta get this done. I got to see if this is connected. I gotta see if its own separate line. And then I get up on the roof. And there was five vents on the roof, five plumbing vents on this little tiny roof. And I want to try to get into every one of them. So I come down off the ladder. I'm up there for 30 minutes. I got the guy flushing toilets in the I'm doing I'm doing everything I can I come down in the listing agent. She's like, so you couldn't get into this line. I'm like, No, I tried every clean out. I could see I tried every way and can you pull a toilet? No, I'm not a plumber. I'm not here to do that. So I don't have the I don't have the wax rings or the ability to fix a leak if the valve breaks when I turn it off. So I don't do that. She goes. I said Ma'am, I tried my big camera. And I tried my smaller camera. She goes, Okay, and then she's just like, so you don't have a smaller camera. And I'm just like, I wanted to slap her. I was I was like You ignorant. I just I almost yelled at her. Because I've done that before many I got no problem with yelling at a relative because some of them deserve it, man. Yeah, they're just, they're just way out of their way out of line. You know, and I looked at I go, I knew you're gonna say that. And she goes, what does that mean? I said, You know what it means? That's exactly what I say. She just thinks she knows everything. Yeah. And she's trying to discredit what I'm doing. And, you know, underhandedly that's what she's trying to do. Oh, he can't get into the line. I'm like, ma'am, you didn't even know the water was off here. Yeah. On this unit.

Chuck Lambert: 56:54

Well, realtors know everything. So.

John Laforme: 56:57

Oh, is that what it is? So anyway, yeah, that was that was recent. Yeah, that's what I was fresh in my mind.

Chuck Lambert: 57:03

I had one I had an incident the other day. So I go through the house. And the it was a flat female cap on cast iron. But the ranch on it twisted it off. dropped the camera in. And this is something that you don't usually see that often. It was in Laguna Beach in there was cast iron from the house all the way to the city connection. So underneath the street and stuff, it was cast iron, and it was bad. It was you know, all the way down.

John Laforme: 57:33

It was cast down right to the city. Yeah, yeah. So no claim.

Chuck Lambert: 57:37

Nope. Oh, wow. So the the agent you know, I was talking to the head the everybody around looking at the cameras showing them all this stuff. And then once I was done, the buyer come up to me and says, Hey, do you have a plumber that you recommend and the agents? Well, I got one I got one I got one. Okay. So I asked the agent, I said, Who do you recommend she told me is ABC plumbing or whatnot. And I said you have their number and I said the reason being is I want to call them and explain what's going on. So they're not coming out here blind if they're going to come out and look at it. So on abs and cast iron I always grease the cap. Put it back on so you'd like us like you did with the with the you leave the the brass know the ones that go over the top. Oh with the clamp over the clamp. Yeah, trying to blank you're going on that's okay. So you leave the clamp loose for you know, so it pops off. So with these, I always grease them in, I don't tighten them up. I put them in really tighten to just give a little bit of this little tiny snug. So this was on a Wednesday. So Friday, I did an inspection for the same, the same listing agent or an inspection. She was the same listing agent and the other houses. Hey, how did that one go? Well, the guy went out there and he said, you put the cap on too tight. And I said, really? And she said yeah, she goes, he came out Wednesday evening, couldn't get the cap off, had to go back and get the proper tools to take the cap off and come back on Thursday. And I'm like, Well, you shouldn't have the tools in his truck. Or whatever is it if I'm driving around a Toyota Corolla with all this stuff on my car. You know like you said the impact ranch the you got the three foot extension to right be pulling a wheel? Yeah, yeah. So the three foot extension all that stuff. The only thing I don't care whose chisels I'm not going to chisel in Sledgehammer at something open, right? But she was all mad at me. And I'm like, because this guy couldn't get the cap off. I'm like, That's called

John Laforme: 59:40

being thrown under the bus jet. Oh, yeah. You know,

Chuck Lambert: 59:43

so yeah, that's it that's just being

John Laforme: 59:45

thrown around and the wheels on

Chuck Lambert: 59:46

the bus are going round around.

John Laforme: 59:48

Here. Here's an here's another thrown under the bus for John. That happened to me probably six months ago. I wanted to go do a home inspection like once again and they asked me to do the sewer. That pitch on this route. roof was a good seven or eight, it was really steep. So getting on the roof was not an option. Because who's gonna hold the real well, I'm trying to push it down would have fell right off the roof. There's no way of doing it. So I looked everywhere I was under the house. And I said, there's no way in that I can see. So I'm not going to charge you because I'm just here, I'm already here for the home. So I'm already here, there's no there's no hair off my back for just trying, you know, so I just refunded them the fee, they paid for that. And I said, you need to get someone here. And maybe they gotta pull a toilet or something like that to get through. So you need to call someone else. So as I'm leaving, the termite guy shows up. So he goes on to the house, and he happens to see a clean out cap on the line. For the cleanup cap is here. It pulled a cap off, it goes this way into a trap like this over here into another turn and goes like this. So he told them, I shouldn't use that the termite guy, not a plumber. So I get a phone call by three different people that the same time Everyone's panicking, everyone goes into a just crazy, crazy spiral. And I'm like, Whoa, what is going on here? Well, you said you couldn't get into line with termite guy found a cleaner. Oh, he did. Wow. Okay, great. I'll come back. Can you send me a picture before I come back? Just to make sure I'm not driving back for nothing? Yeah. Okay, so they sent me the picture. I said, Do you not see the amount of turns into traps? And so they're so quick to throw you under the bus and discredit everything you told them? But but they didn't. They didn't question anything else about the house inspection. No, it's just so funny how a second opinion will just get you just last month, they'll bury our last man standing. Yeah,

Chuck Lambert: 1:01:52

it's, it's, I don't know what you're running into. It's about 5% on some houses where you just can't get in it. Yeah. And then the thing with the vents so if you go through event you know you go you try the two inch ones or whatever. If that vent turns in the wall don't even donate if it goes down and it turns on your camera as you will you will be cutting a hole in the wall to get your camera out. You know so and everybody thinks and even if you do have a clean out, I have one in Claremont the other day I put the camera in for him to clean out pull the cap off to do it went from here to your your your keyboard there got stuck like son of a you know, so and I don't I so I took the camera out, took this good off the camera made it smaller, put it in nothing. Took the one inch camera head off put the half inch camera head on it went and got stuck there. Cleaned it all off went and got my other camera the like I showed you before I leave the little itty bitty one it's like your cord there. And it went and got stuck in the same spot. Like now that I could do better and there will we had a sewer guy out or the we had a blockage in the cabled it. Yeah, cuz the cables got a screw on the end of it and the cable screws itself all the way down through the line. Right? You know, this is a camera not a screw up, right? You know, and then they're like, are the best aren't when they're watching the video. They're watching the thing and there's a there's a one inch or one and a half inch offset. Why don't you just bounce right over the top of it. It's like there's not a $10,000 battering ram. Like when I first got it you know, you're like, now you look at and go I'm not gonna try, you know, you flush the toilet, all you want the camera, the camera will lift up a little bit, but it's not going to make it up over there. You know?

John Laforme: 1:03:42

And if there's tension on it, yeah, you know, glue itself right to the side. It's on.

Chuck Lambert: 1:03:46

But yeah, they get some of them get a little butthurt when you can't get in there, but a lot of the people I've worked with now they're just like, they they know, they're like, hey, you know, some of them you can get into and some of them you can't Yeah, the one the one in Lake Forest the other day, I was hoping I was like 1978 house and I'm like, I pull up the first thing I noticed is up on the roof of the three inch vent and I'm going like I bet you I'm gonna be up on top there. Walk around the house, not then walk around the house. I'm like,

John Laforme: 1:04:14

Oh, you ever see the Toyota commercials? What they jump up the Toyota jump? That's what I do. And I see a cleanup. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm like, oh, it's gonna be a good day

Chuck Lambert: 1:04:21

are the ones that ones are? It's in the front yard. Okay, well, where we put it in 10 years ago, it's right here somewhere and you're down there with the probe trying to find it and it turns out you got a 12 inch Pro but it's 14 inches deep and then they look at you like you're gonna dig it up or do you know, you can dig it up and I'll come back but the dirt back in it, but I'm not gonna you know, wow.

John Laforme: 1:04:44

So there was no extension going to the surface. You know, that's so stupid,

Chuck Lambert: 1:04:48

you know it. And but some people are very, you know, they'll go and we'll have a picture of it and they'll get a picture of it and then you line it up. It's okay, you know, four or five inches is not a problem but you know The best ones though, is when you have the two, you know, one going to the street one going in the house, those are nice. And they are like, like the house here, you know, if you go in the backyard, and there's a four inch, you know, sitting out there and you walk out there, and there's a four inch with a plug with a pressure test plug in there. Oh, yeah. Right. You know, because I carry all those with me, like, you know, every NFA I use when I go by too. You know?

John Laforme: 1:05:26

Yeah, yeah. So if you're a realtor listening to all this nonsense, in you're a good realtor, and you really want us to get into that line, make it a point to ask the sellers where it is, and tell him to put it put a gnome on there or something.

Chuck Lambert: 1:05:42

And don't get mad at us when we can't get it. Yeah, and

John Laforme: 1:05:45

don't get mad as if there was no way in. We're just trying, it's our first time at the house. We're just we're exploring, you know, but the homeowner who has been living there for quite some time may know where this thing is and he may have is safe sitting on top of it, whatever, you know, if it's in the house, whatever. So just insist that they show you where it is

Chuck Lambert: 1:06:04

and we and we as plumber as sewer inspectors, we can tell if they've had cables in the line. Yeah, you know, there's there's one telltale sign on the clean out if it's ABS clean out is the burn marks around the edge of the clean out. And then two is the as you're going down the line, it looks like you're you're looking at a tiger with the stripes going all the way down the line. So yeah, that's you could pretty much that's a dead giveaway. The cables with the blades been down through the line too. Sure.

John Laforme: 1:06:35

Sure. So have you ever run into Orangeburg?

Chuck Lambert: 1:06:40

Corona del Mar has it Santa Ana has it? You got it up here too? Yeah, it's kind of like a premier furnace. The first time you see it, you're like, you know, the second time you see it, you're like, that's what I know. You know? And then the third time you see you're going like, I know what that is. Yeah, yeah, it's, um, that was used that was designed to be used as temporary. They weren't supposed to go back and change all that. I didn't know that. Yeah, there's, if you look up some of the history of it, it sounds like a lot of that was B was to be used as temporary.

John Laforme: 1:07:09

And this is now this is going back to World War Two. Yeah. And that's why they started making this because they needed all the steel for ammunition and tanks and everything else. So there was a there was a steel shortage. And that's why my understanding that's why this was made as a as a as a another means of, you know, a plumbing line. Yeah,

Chuck Lambert: 1:07:27

well, for the people that don't know what Orangeburg is it's it's roofing underlayment rolled together with tar to make a plumbing pipe,

John Laforme: 1:07:35

I kind of the best way I can describe it as think of paper mache with black tar on it. Yeah. And so it's not going to last forever. And they found that out pretty quick. And you can't run a you can't run a router through it and only just you'll just shredded to pieces because it's like paper mache. It's basically what pulp. It's a it's a wood pulp

Chuck Lambert: 1:07:57

and it's a tar it's almost like unroofing underlayment. Yeah, and I believe there's

John Laforme: 1:08:01

a wood pulp in there too. So it's got a lot of different ingredients to hold it together to give it its rigid. rigidness. And Weren't they using it originally for like electrical? That? I don't know, I think I did hear that.

Chuck Lambert: 1:08:13

But I do know that the first time you see it, you know, you scratch your head the second time, I know what that is. And you know, so

John Laforme: 1:08:20

I caught it on a flipped project, a flipped duplex and the buyer was like, Do you know do I need to serve inspection? I said, Well, it's a flip. I would definitely get it done. I don't know. Well, they said they replaced everything. Okay, great. I found 20 feet of the front yard. And I actually was able to when I went back for re inspection on that property, they actually went in there and dug it up and replaced it and they left a piece on the ground. So I took it put it one of my videos as a yes. I got one from 1960s Yeah,

Chuck Lambert: 1:08:53

Corona del Mar got a lot of older homes in Corona del Mar.

John Laforme: 1:08:57

How old is Corona del Mar? This is go back to Oh really?

Chuck Lambert: 1:09:01

20 Wow. Yeah.

John Laforme: 1:09:03

No shit. Yeah, I don't I don't get out that way. Very often.

Chuck Lambert: 1:09:07

Not. There's not a lot of those original structures there. But I've found it probably eight or 10 times in Corona del Mar.

John Laforme: 1:09:17

Right on. So I think a good point for everyone listening to is you know, if there is a sewer problem on your property, or you're trying to do any kind of construction call 811 Dig safe. Is it dig safe Dig, Dig alert, big alert. years ago it was dig safe. Yeah, I remember that. So dig alert. 811 Dig alert. They got a website that can tell you how to get the process going. Do you want to have somebody come out and locate and identify where all you put your major utility lines or underground stuff? If you're putting even if you're putting in a fence on your property. You want to know that because you don't want to hit something. Yeah. And then you have a really bad day. Yep.

Chuck Lambert: 1:09:56

Yeah, we had to the water line. From the city, on the city side of my house popped a couple of years ago. So there's water coming up out in the street. And then it popped across the street. And then they called dig alert. And now there's, there's like 40 things, all in different colors out in front of my house. You know, hopefully there will there, they will wear away here pretty quickly, but they'd been there for almost a year on the orange and green and white paint. So it's like, yeah, but they're like, we can't touch it until Diggler comes out here and doesn't

John Laforme: 1:10:31

so what's your Instagram? You mentioned to have one? Um, I don't know what it is. It's should add something right? Yeah, I

Chuck Lambert: 1:10:38

think it's the I got two of them. My Home Inspection one is Su n, i n SP

John Laforme: 1:10:45

s u n i n SP Yep. In the sun. Okay.

Chuck Lambert: 1:10:49

And then the other one is just basically Orange County sewer inspections. All one all one word. For this is something for you, for the home inspectors that are thinking about doing sewer inspectors, as sewer inspections. Call us we'd be more than happy to do it for you. I have. I don't know about you. But I have probably about 15 or 18 inspectors that call me

John Laforme: 1:11:09

I do let other inspectors know that I do it. I think they're just afraid that they're gonna lose, lose their customer to me. No, they're,

Chuck Lambert: 1:11:17

you know, I have, I have a couple of them that they don't want anything to do with it. They just they have it on their website. They actually why before we came in here, I got a book for me, they actually booked them. Okay, so I get an email saying, hey, Thursday at 130 be here data data. And when I sent him the report, it's actually my report. And all that stuff. I sent him my report that it ended up. And then I have a couple of guys that use me. And when I'm done with it. I send them the video and the pictures with explanations and they incorporate it into their report. And I've had in situations and both times I've had situations where well what if I need a sewer inspection tomorrow called John? Well, what if I can't get ahold of John called John? You know, then they're? Well, you know, if I'm over here, and if John doesn't answer his phones, will you need a sewer inspection call John, you know, and then book it through them. So I'm very, you know, I stand behind that 100% Because I'm not going to bite the hand that feeds me. And these guys use me on a regular basis. Yeah,

John Laforme: 1:12:26

that's good business, you

Chuck Lambert: 1:12:27

know, I'm not out to I'm not out to, uh, you know, I do sewer inspections is called me and cut him out of the deep because they both they both get a brace the price break. And I bought and I know both of them the upcharge. So they, you know, I get x amount, they get X amount and plus whatever their fees are ended up doesn't bother me a bit. I'm comfortable with getting what I get from them. So

John Laforme: 1:12:49

yeah, you know, the reason why I started doing sewers, because the second question after, can you do the home inspection was can you do the sir? I'm like, Well, no, I don't do sewer inspections. And then after a while, I met a guy that had subcontracted to just just to satisfy the customer's needs and try to get everything done. So I would just coordinate with him. He'd show up. He'd take care of itself, they report and all that stuff. And that was good for a couple of years. And then it's just started getting worse. Yeah, it didn't get better wasn't evolving. It was just kind of going backwards and and I had to make a big decision. So I just cut them off. I said, Yeah, I can't I can't do this. I can't refer you anymore. Because I just it's just not going well. And people are complaining about your service. And that's reflecting my service. Yeah. So I had to put up a pull the plug on that. And then I just I gave it like a month and I didn't you know, men don't want to make this investment. I invested 20 grand. And I was like Okay, I gotta be honest with you do that. I got that money back so fast. Oh, yeah. It was like Bing bang, boom.

Chuck Lambert: 1:13:44

Yeah, it's um, it's a big jump to take. You know, there's a lot of what I do I did a I think I did a tic tock thing the other day.

John Laforme: 1:13:55

Were you dancing? No. Yeah,

Chuck Lambert: 1:13:58

I started and this is my experience with this. I started to tick tock just because my daughter sends me all these things in there on tick tock and I can't watch him on regular on the text message says okay, we'll do a tick tock. What a joke that thing is. So just for for shits and giggles. I did sewer camera inspection. Oh my word. You want to see some funny things? Or some things that just make you roll your eyes. Just do that. And then all of a sudden I get on there and go on there the other night. Oh, your accounts been permanently banned. So somebody hacked my account and already been three days old already hacked account and got it shut down. I'm like, great. We're done with that.

John Laforme: 1:14:41

What was your password? 12123.

Chuck Lambert: 1:14:46

But I got into this to make myself more recession proof. Absolutely. You know, so the funny thing in it's funny, like you said you invested 20 grand

John Laforme: 1:15:00

Since then it's been more that was my initial. Yeah.

Chuck Lambert: 1:15:03

So these things break. They're expensive to fix. Yep. But the funny what I was getting at is that a lot of these guys on Tik Tok and stuff like they're doing it with a$300 camera. And you're just like, really? You know, and you're watching the video and the doing this in the water is upside down.

John Laforme: 1:15:22

Some guys don't don't even have locators. Yeah, so they're providing a service, half service. I mean, but

Chuck Lambert: 1:15:28

I don't know if you did this. But when I did is I called my heavy hitter realtors. Say, Is this something that you would be interested in? Is this something you'd be interested in? Some of them are like, no, but the funny thing is, is now after that 96 One of one of them was emphatically no, not at all. We don't want nothing to do with it. And after a $96,000 sewer repair, they're like, thinking they were the first one, you know, the light bulb? Yeah. So but it my first investment was, it was just, you know, it was like, Oh, my, you know, am I doing the right thing? You know, am I putting my family at risk by spending all this money and all this jazz? And then after there's like, now you can't I'm like, freaking camera. Where's the camera? You know, camera. Give me another one. Give me

John Laforme: 1:16:13

a Yeah, it's, uh, you know, it's just supply and demand. That's why I started it. I was literally every, every second question was can you do the sewer to? Yeah, now I can. Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. That's it. It was like now I'm making more money on every job. I go. Oh, yeah, definitely. I just brought my profit margin way up. It's a no brainer. Yeah. I mean, but it's hard work. I do mold. It is hard work. And it's sometimes I start off with the server because I know it's gonna be difficult because at the end of the home inspection, I might be a little worn out. If it's been a busy week, and I just, you know, if

Chuck Lambert: 1:16:49

you're playing with shit

John Laforme: 1:16:50

and all that stuff. It's a shitty job. Everybody. Just make no mistake about it. It's smelly. It's dirty. Yeah, rubber gloves are a necessity. Always keep your mouth closed. When you're using your reel. Don't chew on your fingernails. Yeah, not sure. So it's a nasty thing. But we're willing to do it for you. Yeah. Why? Because if we're providing a service aren't happy to, and you gotta get all the facts about the house. So always remember, if you're buying a home, don't panic. Just get the facts, you get all the inspections done. If your realtor tells you, you don't need a sewer camera inspection, slap them and get a new relative cyber slap. So that's all I got for you, Chuck, I, you know, anything else you want to add? No,

Chuck Lambert: 1:17:35

I can think I probably think of something on the way home. But yeah,

John Laforme: 1:17:37

I mean, we can always do this again some time. But it was great having you. And we covered a lot covered a lot of good stuff. And that's that's exactly what I expected to do. With both of us doing the same thing. For as many years we've been doing it because there's a slim chance we couldn't talk about anything. Yep. Well, thanks for having me. So once again, you are with your company a sunrise inspection services. You do have general home inspection gets sewer and pool is anything else?

Chuck Lambert: 1:18:06

Thermal use thermal

John Laforme: 1:18:07

guns. And then let's see you also have the the Orange County sewer inspection, correct. That's an affiliate. Yep. Is that your sister company?

Chuck Lambert: 1:18:19

It's a subsidiary but yeah, it's uh, that's the one where the homeless pick, like if you were to hire me, that's the if I was gonna say, Okay, if I was gonna send them a report, that's the one it was the Orange County sewer inspections. If I was going to do it for you in he didn't want the name out there. Again, I will send you the video and the pictures with explanations and you can incorporate it into your report.

John Laforme: 1:18:43

Okay, data. Okay, awesome. So your Instagram is at SU N I N. SP. And then also at the Orange County sewer inspections, and your website is sunrise inspection. services.com Correct. Okay, great. I'll add all that stuff in the description of the podcast.

Chuck Lambert: 1:19:04

There's also Orange County sewer inspections.com.

John Laforme: 1:19:07

Okay, and you're down in the Orange County area. So that's, that's where you are. So you come up to my neighborhood. Next time you stop by and say hi.

Chuck Lambert: 1:19:15

Yeah, yeah. I think I've been a part of twice in the past year. So

John Laforme: 1:19:20

you know how it isn't. You know how it is in Jersey in New York. You know what the cops over there. You can't just these kids come over unannounced. Yeah. You can't cross county lines unannounced. You know how it is? Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, great having you. Thanks for coming and nice meeting you. Thank you very much.