In recent decades, sewer inspection technology has advanced at a rate like never before.

Working long days to keep the sewer mains clean and running has become a tradition for one Southern California family. Their company, Houston & Harris, first opened its doors 31 years ago by offering services for underground inspection and cleaning. And while many things have changed over three decades of business—including new technologies to complete the work—its core mission and family-centric character have remained the same. 

Like many communities in the state of Oregon, the City of Tigard has seen major and consistent growth in recent years. With an annual population growth rate of 2.67% in 2017—a trend that’s only projected to continue—the city has had to take a step back and reassess how it manages its sewer maintenance operations, among other processes, to keep up with the increase in demand.

Located just an hour north of Seattle, Lake Stevens Sewer District is home to approximately 32,000 people and 13,600 sewer connections. For nearly six decades, the District contracted out its service and CCTV inspection needs, but once its leadership did the math, they found that this process was costing the department as much as $2,000 a day. In 2016, Lake Stevens decided to remedy the problem and move inspection operations in-house, and to purchase its own sewer inspection equipment. Not only would the solution be cost-effective, but it would also give the organization more control over the scheduling, prioritization and long-term planning of its sewer maintenance.

Many municipalities say they want a sewer crawler to last 10 years, but few put in the work to make that happen. Modern sewer inspection systems are highly-engineered equipment that require specialized care. You don’t let just anyone work on your jetter truck, so why take a casual approach to operating and caring for your crawler?

Twelve years ago, Neil Buchanan set out to start a small excavation company called Buchanan Contracting, Inc. This small company soon became Kentucky’s most trusted one-stop shop for underground projects. Today, the company has several divisions, including CCTV inspection, cleaning, excavation, sewer testing, CIPP and manhole rehab. The growth was exponential and now the company employs more than twenty workers and inspects close to a million feet of pipe per year. One of the things that sets Buchanan apart from its competitors is the company’s ability to do cross bore inspections.

With a 0-degree turning radius, a compact crawler body and an internal strain-relief system, the ROVVER X tackles turns with ease. Its agile wheels are designed for superior traction and the lightweight Kevlar cable extends 1000 feet. Upgrade to the 1650 foot reel and you can extend your capabilities even farther.

Thank you to the many customers and partners who visited our booth during WEFTEC 2018 in New Orleans last week. We welcomed nearly 300 guests and enjoyed seeing many of our sales partners from across the country. A special thanks to Best Equipment, our sales partner in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, for loaning us their new demo truck for the show.

The ROVVER X has a suite of accessories that make it an extremely versatile crawler, fit for a variety of inspections. To increase visibility in lines with flow, the ROVVER X rises to the challenge with the help of a lift. Using only a single hex key and easy-to-use quick-change locks, the operator can install the lift and move from a 6" setup to a 12" setup. Simply unlock the camera head and remove, click lift into place and lock, and then install the camera head onto the lift and lock into place. Once the system is powered back on, the VC500 controller automatically recognizes the attachment and brings up new options for controlling the lift.