Questions to ask
The most useful thing a homeowner can bring to a sewer conversation is a short list of specific questions and somewhere to write the answers down.
Every question set here shares one property: the answers are things a professional or an authority can actually tell you. There are no questions designed to catch anyone out, and none that ask someone to guess.
SewerOwner is free and independent — not a contractor, and not a referral service. Take these to whoever is doing the work, and keep what they tell you.
What this page cannot establish
- asking these questions does not establish anything about your property
- these are for understanding, not for challenging a professional
- SewerOwner cannot tell you whether an answer you receive is correct
What this section decides
Which questions belong in which conversation, and which of them the person in front of you can actually answer. A contractor can say what they checked. An inspector can say how far the camera reached and what it could not see. An authority can say what its own records hold. None of them can answer for the others, and asking the wrong one produces a guess delivered with confidence.
The sets are grouped that way: a contractor at the property, an inspection result in your hand, a written quote and the exclusions in it, a call to the body that operates your system, and the method somebody has recommended.
Question sets
- Contractor questionsAsk the right things while the contractor is here.
- Inspection questionsFind out what my inspection actually covered.
- Proposal questionsAsk the things that make a proposal comparable.
- Municipal questionsGet usable answers from my operating authority.
- Method questionsUnderstand why this method and not another.
What would change the answer
- nothing — these work from a standing start
What to do next
It is the conversation most homeowners have first.
Start with contractor visit questionsIf your situation is different
- You are holding an inspection result: Camera inspection questions
- You are comparing proposals: Proposal questions
If you want a second read
You can describe what you have been told and have a person read it. They will say which question is still unanswered, or say that they cannot help — there is no contractor network behind this site, nothing is routed anywhere, and no request reaches a company.
Ask someone to look at what you have been toldRelated, and why
- Preparing
The preparation these questions are part of.
- Visit preparation
The same questions, with somewhere to record what you are told while the contractor is still standing there.