How to Read a Sewer Inspection Report

A sewer inspection report can look intimidating the first time it lands on your desk. Pages of timestamps, abbreviations, distances, and clock positions. But once you know the structure, it reads like a story: here's the pipe, here's what's wrong with it, and here's how bad.

Let's walk through it.

Start with the header

Every inspection starts with the basics: the pipe's unique ID, the upstream and downstream manholes, the material, the diameter, and the date. This is your anchor. Before you read a single defect, you know exactly which segment of your system you're looking at.

Then read the observations

This is the heart of the report. Each observation typically gives you four things:

• Distance — how far into the pipe the defect appears, measured from the starting manhole.

• Code — the NASSCO PACP code that names the defect.

• Grade — the 1-to-5 severity score.

• Clock position — where on the pipe wall it sits, described like a clock face (a crack at "12 o'clock" is at the top of the pipe).

You'll also see whether a defect is a single point or continuous over a stretch of pipe, which matters a lot when you're scoping a repair.

Where to look first

When you're short on time, scan for the grade 4s and 5s. Those are your near-term risks. Then watch for a few common families of codes: fractures and cracks (structural trouble), roots (a recurring O&M headache), deposits and grease (flow restrictions), and infiltration (groundwater finding its way in, which ties straight to your I&I problem). 

The report should answer one question

A good inspection report isn't just a record that the work was done. It's a prioritization tool. By the time you've read it, you should be able to say which segments need attention now, which can wait, and which are fine.

If your reports aren't getting you there quickly, it's usually not the inspection that's the problem, it's how the footage gets coded and organized afterward. That's a fixable bottleneck.

Curious what consistent, map-ready reports could do for your prioritization? Let's talk.