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Whose Pipe Is Leaking

Between the water main in the street and the tap in your kitchen there is a point where responsibility changes hands, and a leak on the wrong side of it is somebody else’s bill.

The essentials

A leak on the utility’s side of the service connection is usually theirs to fix and not billed to you; on your side it is yours. Establishing which side it falls on, before paying anybody, is a free telephone call to the utility.

AcousticLeak is a referral service, not a contractor. We connect homeowners with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands. We carry out no work and no leak location, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call. Nothing here is a statement about what your own utility will credit; only your utility can tell you that.

Why this question comes first

If the leak is on the utility’s side, the correct action is to report it and stop. You do not pay to have it located, you do not pay to have it dug up, and you should not be quoted for either.

If it is on your side, all of that is yours, and so is the water that went through the meter — which is where the adjustment schemes come in.

Where the line usually sits, and why usually is the operative word

In most arrangements the utility owns the main and some portion of the service connection, and the property owner owns the rest of the run into the building. The changeover is often at or near the meter or a shutoff in the footway, but not always and not everywhere.

We are not going to be more precise than that, because the answer is set by your utility and your municipality and there is no national rule. Anybody telling you confidently where your boundary is without having looked it up is guessing.

The shape of it

Where responsibility for the service pipe changes handsA single run of pipe from the water main in the street, past a curb stop and a meter, into a house. The changeover from the utility’s responsibility to the property owner’s is drawn not as a line but as a shaded band covering the region between the curb stop and the meter, marked to say that only the utility can say where the boundary actually falls.the mainin the streetcurb stopthe meteryour housesomewhere in hereonly your utility can tell you wheretheir responsibilityyours
A leak on their side is not your bill and not your excavation. One telephone call establishes which side yours is on, and it is free.

How to find out in one call

Telephone your water utility and ask where their responsibility for your service line ends. It is a routine question and they answer it every day. Ask them to tell you what they do if a leak is suspected on their side, because most will send somebody to check at no charge.

Do this before booking a private survey. It is free and it can end the matter.

The meter is the useful landmark

Water that is registering on your meter has already passed it, which means it is on your side of the meter at least. That does not by itself settle ownership of everything downstream, but it does tell you the problem is not upstream of the measuring point.

A leak on the utility side of the meter typically does not register on your consumption at all, which is why a wet street with a normal bill is a call to them rather than to anybody else.

Next

Check with your water utility first.If the leak is on their side it is not your bill and not your excavation, and that call is free. If it is yours, come back and we will route you to a local contractor who can find it, chosen on the ZIP code you give. We never charge you either way. Nor must it be a leak: whatever the plumbing is doing, this number reaches somebody.

Call (888) 530-1544
Call (888) 530-1544