Not everyone wants to see sewage in 1080p, and that’s probably for the best. But if you want to or need to, Milwaukee has you covered with its single most expensive tool, the $13,999 M18 325-foot Stiff Modular Pipeline Inspection System. Plumbing problems are serious, after all, and sewage backups are among the most common surprise repairs you want to avoid. But is such a pricey tool something a homeowner needs to buy? It almost certainly is not, and Milwaukee probably wouldn’t try to convince you otherwise.

The M18 18-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless Stiff Modular Pipeline Inspection System Kit, a Home Depot exclusive and currently a steal at $11,499, features a self-leveling 34mm HDR camera, which runs off Milwaukee’s M18 Redlithium 18-volt, 5.0Ah lithium-ion batteries (it comes with two, which is a good thing since they’re $169 each), and you can swap batteries without shutting the entire unit down. It comes with a tablet mount, but apparently not a tablet, which surely makes for an irritating and unexpected trip to Best Buy. It features a 12 mm push cable, useful for advancing a camera at the end of a long cable. And just in case you find that it doesn’t push it well enough, note that it’s only returnable in-store.

So, who’s returning this tool? Judging from the reviews on a dozen sites we checked (a Home Depot exclusive ain’t as exclusive as it used to be), nobody. There’s no single review to be found, even on the Milwaukee site. That’s not necessarily a knock on the device or its price. 

This is a professional-quality tool, and there are much more elaborate and expensive commercial pipeline inspection cameras out there as well. An Aries Industries Pathfinder costs more than $40,000, for example, and with options, it can cost in excess of $300,000 without the available Ford, GMC, or Mercedes truck or van and vehicle accessories. This is obviously intended for municipal or industrial uses that are irrelevant to a homeowner.

Of course, as a homeowner, you might occasionally have a need for a pipe inspection camera to deal with drain line issues, and Amazon sells a lot of superficially similar options for a tiny fraction of the Milwaukee rig’s cost. And you can simply rent a comparable sewer inspection rig designed for the same pipe sizes (3 inches to 10 inches) from Home Depot for $250 per day or $1,000 per week — a worthwhile investment, even if you don’t have a problem and are just running through your list of important first steps when moving into your new home.

You can also hire a professional for anywhere from $175 to $350 or more. The price depends on your local market and whether your drain/waste lines have a cleanout access point; otherwise, a toilet must be removed and its drain line used for access, which naturally makes things more costly. The real benefit of hiring professionals, as you might expect, is that they know what they’re looking at and how it translates into a plan of action for effectively correcting any sewer systems problems before buying a house or simply trying to make your drains work better.