Private sewer lateral programs should not use NASSCO languages

When presenting Zoom demos of Forward Lateral to municipalities I often get the following question: It’s all NASSCO, right?

My answer? No. This raises eyebrows. But it really shouldn’t. Let me explain.

NASSCO is the standardized language used for coding out CCTV observations in sewer lines across the United States and beyond. Surely, you can’t have people in the inspection trucks using different terminology from inspection to inspection. There’s so much variation just at different municipalities! There would be an infinite amount of ways to simply observe something as simple as a “crack.” For coding out the mainlines, NASSCO-based languages are amazing.

For private sewer lateral programs, however, such standardization actually works against the mission of NASSCO. It requires unnecessary training by plumbing contractors, and, alienates the property owner that is tasked with hiring a plumbing company to fix the lateral. Such property owners surely are not NASSCO certified, nor do they care to be. Simply, they want their private sewer lateral fixed.

So my answer on such demos with municipalities is that while NASSCO is helpful for mainlines, it is not for private sewer lateral programs. Nothing infuriates a property owner more than getting locked into a bunch of overly complex terminology that they do not understand and are forced to either become one-time experts in a field they do not care about, or surrender and pay whatever sum of money will make the problem go away. This results in higher prices and a lack of transparency.

At Forward Lateral, we wanted to make private sewer lateral inspection programs easy for property owners to understand. After all, they own the lateral.

Standardization of terms, however, is hugely important! For coding out observations in the pipe, inspectors on Forward Lateral use basic terms that can be understood by non-experts: roots, crack, offset, broken. About 15 terms in total. These observations can be individually commented on by the municipality to simply communicate A) what’s observed in the lateral, and B) what needs to be done to fix it. Easy.

Personally, I love the mission of NASSCO. But private sewer lateral programs have an obligation to property owners to communicate in commonly understood terms that empower their decision-making process to fix them. Without such communication, a breeding ground for frustration and misunderstanding occurs.