Let’s face it, purchasing an inspection crawler can be stressful. Nobody wants to be responsible for a bad decision, and this particular decision is complex for several reasons:

• It takes a lot of research.
• It's a significant investment.
• Multiple decision-makers influence the purchase.
• The crawler's performance is vital to your organization’s success.
• It's difficult to fix a bad decision.

At Envirosight, our product development team is always conducting market research to determine what attributes and features contribute the most to owner satisfaction. Naturally, this research reveals new insights as technology evolves, so we’ve taken care to make sure the findings here reflect the most current state of the market.

With that in mind, here are three things to consider when buying an inspection crawler:

1. Versatility Your crawler should adapt to a wide range of inspection challenges. Choose a system with several available chassis sizes — you can own the one size that meets your day-to-day needs, and rent the others for special circumstances. Also be sure your system offers a full selection of wheel, lamp and camera lift options, that way you can inspect most any combination of pipe size, material and condition.

2. Upgradeability Be certain the system you choose can evolve with your needs. Like cellphones, today’s more advanced crawler systems can self-update online to bring you the latest software features and performance optimizations. And if the system is based on CANbus, it can accept any number of attachments ... even ones that don’t yet exist.

3. Scalability Sometimes you need more than traditional CCTV. To save the expense of additional crawler systems, yours should support add-on functionality for lateral-launch inspection, side-scanning and laser profiling.

The three considerations presented above are excerpted from the white paper “Top 10 Considerations When Buying a Pipe Inspection Crawler.” The white paper draws on current market research, technological developments and industry best practices to help you make an informed, confident decision on your next crawler purchase. Guidance is presented in a checklist format for easy reference, and the document provides an easy way to organize input from various stakeholders. Click here to read all ten considerations.

To learn more about the ROVVER X sewer inspection crawler and to schedule an on-site demo, click here.