A company offered to flush the drains for a few hundred dollars without a camera. Is that worth doing?

It might restore flow, and you will not know whether it was the right treatment or whether it lasts. If it is genuinely cheap and you are heading into a wet month, it is a defensible stopgap. As a decision about the system, it is guessing with a receipt.

Do I have to replace the whole perimeter, or can it be done in sections?

Sections are possible and are often the right answer — but only where the camera shows the rest of the run is sound and has fall. Where a house has original pipe all round and several failures, doing a quarter of it at a time usually costs more in total than doing it once.

Is an interior drainage system an alternative?

It is a different thing rather than a cheaper version. An interior system manages water that has already reached the inside of your foundation; an exterior perimeter drain is meant to stop it arriving. Where excavation is genuinely impossible, interior systems exist for that reason. Where it is possible, most of this market treats exterior work as the repair and interior work as the compromise.

Should I get it scoped, flushed, repaired in one place, or replaced?

Scope it, flush it, repair a section, or replace the run

Direct answer · reviewed 2026-09-22

In that order, and rarely more than one step at a time. A camera scope buys you knowledge and is the only one of the four that always makes sense. Flushing buys you flow through a pipe that is intact but restricted, and is wasted money on a pipe that is broken. A spot repair buys you one fixed section and only makes sense when the camera found one problem in an otherwise sound run. A full replacement buys you a new system and is the right answer when the run is failing in several places, has no usable fall, or discharges somewhere it should not. The decision is made by what the camera sees, not by the age of your house and not by the size of the puddle.

Conditions and exceptions

If nobody has put a camera in the pipe, any quote for the other three is a guess with a price on it.
A drain can be sound but connected to nothing useful. That is a replacement question even though the pipe is fine.
Flushing an old clay line can dislodge what was holding a cracked joint together. It is a reasonable step, not a risk-free one.

Scope, clean, repair or replace Drain problem assessment

Local evidence

Every figure below is quoted from the source shown or is our labelled estimate. Verified dates are the day we last checked the source; a figure whose check is overdue is withheld rather than shown.

Camera inspection (drain scope) in Greater Victoria: From $295; The lowest published figure we can cite; a longer run or a difficult access point costs more · Ask whether you receive the video and a written report; RainTek Drainage & Waterproofing (Victoria) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
New drainage installation in Greater Victoria: $2,000–$10,000; Depth of the foundation, access for a machine, and what has to be put back (concrete, landscaping) move it most; RainTek Drainage & Waterproofing (Victoria) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
How long a perimeter drain replacement takes: 1 to 4 weeks; Terrain, landscaping to reinstate and access decide where in that range a house lands; RainTek Drainage & Waterproofing (Victoria) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
Where a foundation drain is allowed to discharge: To a sewer, a drainage ditch or a dry well; A dry well may be used only where the natural groundwater level is below the bottom of the dry well, and must be at least 5 m from the foundation (Sentences 9.14.5.3.(1) and (2)); Province of British Columbia (BC Codes) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22

What each of the four actually buys

The scope costs From $295. A full replacement is published locally at $2,000–$10,000 and takes 1 to 4 weeks. The gap between those two numbers is the entire reason to do them in order.

The four steps, what they are for, and what they leave unanswered
Step	What it buys	When it is the wrong choice
Camera scope	Evidence: what the pipe is, where water stands, where it breaks, where it goes	Almost never — it is the cheapest step in the trade
Flush / hydro-jet	Flow restored through a pipe that is intact but restricted by silt or fine roots	When the camera shows a break, a crush or no fall; you are washing a pipe that cannot carry water anyway
Spot repair	One failed section replaced, the rest left alone	When the camera shows the same failure in several places, or the run has no usable slope
Full replacement	A new system, correct fall, correct stone, a known discharge point	When one root ball in an otherwise sound line is the whole problem

The question that decides it more often than the pipe does

Where does the water go? To a sewer, a drainage ditch or a dry well A perfectly sound drain that ends in a buried nowhere — a dry well that silted up decades ago, or a pipe that was cut when a driveway went in — will keep failing no matter how many times it is flushed, and a camera that only looks at the first stretch will keep calling it fine.

When you ask for a scope, ask specifically for the discharge point to be located and named. It is the single most common thing missing from a drainage quote, and it is the difference between a repair that works and one that buys you two more winters.

The order that stops you buying the wrong thing

Each step's result decides whether the next one is needed. A contractor who quotes step four before step two has been done is not necessarily wrong — they may well be right — but you have no way of knowing, and neither do they.

Watch it rain, and deal with surface water and downspouts first. These are the cheap causes and they are common.
Get the drain scoped, with the video and the discharge point in writing.
If the pipe is intact and restricted: flush it, and ask what will stop it silting up again.
If the camera found one failure in a sound run: quote the spot repair, and ask what the rest of the run looked like.
If the camera found several failures, no fall, or no usable discharge: quote the replacement, and read the contractor questions page before you sign.

Questions homeowners ask

A company offered to flush the drains for a few hundred dollars without a camera. Is that worth doing?: It might restore flow, and you will not know whether it was the right treatment or whether it lasts. If it is genuinely cheap and you are heading into a wet month, it is a defensible stopgap. As a decision about the system, it is guessing with a receipt.
Do I have to replace the whole perimeter, or can it be done in sections?: Sections are possible and are often the right answer — but only where the camera shows the rest of the run is sound and has fall. Where a house has original pipe all round and several failures, doing a quarter of it at a time usually costs more in total than doing it once.
Is an interior drainage system an alternative?: It is a different thing rather than a cheaper version. An interior system manages water that has already reached the inside of your foundation; an exterior perimeter drain is meant to stop it arriving. Where excavation is genuinely impossible, interior systems exist for that reason. Where it is possible, most of this market treats exterior work as the repair and interior work as the compromise.

Your next step

Four steps, one of which is right for your house today; the tool asks what a contractor would ask.

Work out which step your house needs

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Sources

British Columbia Building Code 2018, Division B, Section 9.14 — Drainage — Province of British Columbia (BC Codes), accessed 2026-09-22
Common drainage questions — RainTek Drainage & Waterproofing (Victoria), accessed 2026-09-22

Code and municipal requirements are quoted from the sources above; price ranges are what named local companies publish, and the companies that publish them sell the work. Nothing here is a diagnosis of a particular house: only a camera in your own drain can tell you what is wrong with it. Report a correction.