Plumbing Inspection in Santa Fe, NM
A Santa Fe buyer who skips a sewer camera on a pre-1980 house is buying a surprise. We inspect supply, drains, water heater, visible gas, and pressure, and we camera the lateral when you pay for that add-on — which you should on clay. You get photos and a written list, not a vibe. We do not inspect to sell you a $20,000 job; we inspect so you can negotiate or walk. 505-316-4231.
A Santa Fe buyer who skips a sewer camera on a pre-1980 house is buying a surprise. We inspect supply, drains, water heater, visible gas, and pressure, and we camera the lateral when you pay for that add-on — which you should on clay. You get photos and a written list, not a vibe. We do not inspect to sell you a $20,000 job; we inspect so you can negotiate or walk. 505-316-4231.
Content reviewed 2026-10-01.
What a general home inspector will miss
They will note a drip. They will not always know a heater is underrated for altitude, or that the galvanized is one winter from a kitchen flood. We are plumbers. The report reads like a plumber wrote it.
Insurance and warranty visits
Some carriers want a documented check. We can do that. We will not invent defects to juice a claim, and we will not hide a failed T&P to keep a seller happy.
What this visit is for
People call for an inspection when they are buying a house, selling one, or trying to understand a problem a home inspector described in one sentence. We are not a home inspector. We look at the plumbing and the mechanical equipment we are licensed to touch: supply, drains, heaters, gas appliances, visible sewer where there is a cleanout. We do not wave at the roof and call it a house inspection. The product is a written list of what we saw, what is failed, what is old but working, and what we could not see.
What we will not sign
We will not write “plumbing is fine” on a house where the water was off and we could not fill the drains. We will not camera a sewer and then let someone else summarize it as “good” if the clip shows a belly. We will not estimate remaining life as a single number of years. A galvanized system can last another season or another decade depending on the water and the use, and we will describe the condition instead of picking a year to make a negotiation easy. If you want a repair price, we separate that from the inspection so the inspection is not a sales call in disguise.
Camera, pressure, and the heater closet
On a sale we want the water on, the heater fired if it is safe to fire, and a cleanout we can open. We note hardness symptoms, active leaks, illegal or uncapped gas valves, a T&P that is plugged, and combustion that is sooting. A water heater that is past its life and not leaking is “at the end,” not “failed today.” Those are different sentences for a buyer. Slab leaks we cannot hear do not get invented. If we suspect one, we say what test would prove it and what it costs.
Historic houses and the things that are allowed to be old
A Plaza house is allowed to have plaster, odd venting, and fixtures that are not current catalog. Code for a repair is not the same as a demand that the whole house be rebuilt to this year’s book because it changed owners. We distinguish “this will leak” from “this would not pass if you pulled a permit for a remodel tomorrow.” Buyers deserve both sentences. Sellers deserve not to be told their 1920 vent is a crisis if it is drafting and the only issue is that it is visible from the street.
How you use the notes
You can hand the notes to an agent, a seller, or a lender. We do not negotiate the price of the house. We do show up for the items we said we could repair, at the prices we put next to them, if you want that crew to do the work. If you want a second bidder, the notes are written so they can bid without us in the room. License 384927. The shop is 1259 Coriander Rd.
What you turn on before we arrive
Water on. Gas on if the heater and furnace are supposed to be inspected as working equipment. If the seller has the house winterized and the boiler is drained, we can inspect what is visible and we will write “not operated.” We will not invent a firing test. Access to the crawl, the heater closet, and the cleanout is the difference between a useful visit and a look at a locked door. Tell the occupant we are coming. A 40-minute slot with nobody home is a wasted fee.
How the notes are organized
Failed and active. Old and working. Not visible. Each item gets a sentence a buyer and a seller can both read without a translator. Repair prices, if you asked for them, sit next to the item and are marked as prices, not as demands. A camera clip of the sewer is linked or handed over, not described from memory a day later. Pressure, if we measured it, is a number. “Seems high” is not a number. We do not estimate the cost of a kitchen remodel that happens to include a faucet. We estimate the faucet, the leak, the heater, the sewer, the gas connector. The rest is someone else’s scope.
After the report
Questions from the agent are fine. Changing a sentence because a deal is shaky is not. If we were wrong, we correct it and we say we were wrong. If we were right and it is inconvenient, the sentence stays. Repairs we offered can be scheduled with this crew or handed to another. The report is written so the second bidder is not starting from zero. License 384927. Shop address 1259 Coriander Rd, Santa Fe.
Time on site
A straightforward house with access is a couple of hours, not a ten-minute walkthrough with a clipboard app. A house with a crawl full of leaks is longer, and we will say so rather than skip the crawl. You are paying for the time under the house. If you need the report the same day for a deadline, say that when you book. We can usually do it. We cannot do it if we are still in the crawl at 4 p.m. and you need prose by 4:15.
Buyer, seller, and the sentence that has to stay neutral
We work for the person who hired us. The notes still have to be true if the other side reads them. “Active leak at the heater pan” is true. “Seller has neglected this house” is not a plumbing observation. We stay on our side of that line. Buyers should attend if they can. Seeing the soot or the wet pan is worth more than a paragraph. Sellers should not turn the water off to hide a noise; we will write that we could not operate the system. Agents who want a one-word summary can have one after they have the list: repair before close, credit, or live with it. We will not pick the real-estate strategy. Sewer camera is optional and we recommend it on clay-era houses and on any house with a history of backups or large trees over the lateral. Skipping it to save the fee is a buyer’s choice we will note. Time is a couple of hours when access is real. Same-day writing is available when you say you have a deadline. We do not email a cheerful “all good” that the notes do not support. License 384927. The address we leave from is 1259 Coriander Rd.
Access is the product
A locked crawl, a heater closet full of storage, and a seller who turned the water off will shrink the report to what we could see. We write the limits in the first paragraph so nobody treats silence as a pass. If you can unlock those doors before we arrive, the fee buys a better document. Bring prior repair invoices if you have them. A heater that was replaced last year should not be described as original, and we will not describe it that way if you show us the receipt. The camera, if you add it, needs the cleanout and a working water supply.
What we actually get called for
Not a generic list — these are the failures this climate and housing stock produce.
Pre-1980 unknown laterals
Camera. Budget it.
Heater age versus hardness
We tell you the likely remaining years, not a fairy tale.
Unpermitted gas or heater
It goes in the report. Your call with the seller.
Well + house combo
We can inspect house plumbing and talk treatment; a well driller still owns the hole.
How a job runs
Walk the mechanicals
Heater, boiler, visible pipe, pressure.
Fixtures and drains
Every working bath and kitchen.
Optional camera
Recommended on older laterals.
Report the same day when we can
Photos attached.
Questions people ask before they call
How long does a plumbing inspection take?
Usually 60–120 minutes plus camera time if we run the sewer. Historic or large houses take longer.
Do you inspect for the seller too?
Yes. Same checklist. We do not write a different report because you are listing.
Is this a city permit inspection?
No. That is the building department. This is a private diagnostic for a buyer, owner, or insurer.
City pages that stay
Plumbing Inspections stays on this URL. Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Española each have one plumber page. Other towns 308 here or to those three. Call 505-316-4231.
Need plumbing inspections?
Lobo Tech · NM license 384927 · 1259 Coriander Rd, Santa Fe · 505-316-4231