Few things can enhance customer loyalty for contractors more than accomplishing what other contractors couldn’t do.

As a case in point, consider a job tackled several years ago by Bulldog Contractors, a plumbing, drain cleaning and septic services company based in Jefferson, a small city in rural northeastern Texas.

Officials in another Texas city were unable to locate a problem with a sewer main, nor could a plumbing company hired by the city, says Jeff Keller, general manager of Bulldog Contractors, which his father, Carl, established in 1978.

But equipped with a standard SeeSnake pipeline inspection camera from RIDGID, Keller located the problem: a crushed sewer main.

“We came in behind another plumber and confirmed the problem was on the city side of the line,” Keller says.

The SeeSnake camera provided its worth again at a chemical plant in Carthage, about 40 miles south of Jefferson. Bulldog Contractors was preparing to demolish a building but first had to locate a sewer line and cap it off.

“We used the SeeSnake and it was spot-on in pinpointing the location of the head of the line,” Keller says.

Bulldog Contractors now owns a full complement of RIDGID equipment, including a SeeSnake microReel camera for inspecting smaller lines, an SR-60 SeekTech pipeline locator, a K-6200 drum machine for cleaning 3- to 6-inch-diameter pipes and a FlexShaft drain machine.

Keller says the inspection cameras are among the company’s best investments in technology. Technicians also use them to locate septic tanks and to seal the deal on jobs.

“It’s invaluable when you can diagnose and accurately locate issues in sewer lines, then show customers right in front of them what’s going on,” Keller says. “Seeing is believing. No one argues with you about a diagnosis when they can see the problem for themselves.”

Bulldog Contractors once bought cheaper cameras but decided about a decade ago to invest in the better-quality SeeSnake cameras. They’ve more than paid for themselves through the time saved by diagnosing problems without having to excavate, Keller says.

“I’m always pretty amazed at their capabilities, their accuracy and the quality of the images,” he says. “After I locate a problem in a line, I tell customers I’ll take them to lunch wherever they want to go if the problem isn’t right where the camera says it is. I’ve never had to pay up.”

Read more about Bulldog Contractors in the December 2023 issue of Cleaner magazine.