Service
Water Main Repair
Repairing the main water line serving a property, including establishing where your responsibility ends and the utility's begins before anyone digs.
- Licensed and insured
- Price agreed before work
- A plumber who works your area
Find the boundary before spending anything
The most useful thing you can establish about a main water break is whose pipe it is.
The utility owns the main running along the street, and normally the meter. From the meter to your building is generally the property owner’s, and that usually includes the length beneath the sidewalk and the parkway.
So the rough rule is: water surfacing in the street is likely theirs, water surfacing in your garden is likely yours. Jurisdictions vary and some cover more than others, which is why it is worth a call to the utility before a plumber.
If it is theirs, they repair it at no cost to you, and they tend to respond quickly because a main break is treated water going into the ground.
No water at all is not automatically a break
Before assuming the worst, three things are worth ruling out, and all of them are free.
Ask a neighbour. If the whole street is dry, it is a supply interruption and the utility already knows.
Check your own shutoff. Valves get closed by other trades, by previous work, or accidentally.
Consider the weather. In a hard freeze, a service line can freeze solid and produce exactly the same symptom as a break: no water, nothing visible, no explanation.
A genuine main break usually announces itself. Water has to go somewhere, and at the volumes involved it generally surfaces.
Does this sound familiar?
Problems this service solves
- Water surfacing in the street or parkway
- A total loss of water to the property
- A main line break under a driveway
- Very low pressure across the whole property
- Water pooling around the meter box
Signs you need water main repair
If more than one of these is true, the problem is usually past the point a plunger or a store-bought cleaner will fix.
- Water is surfacing outside the property boundary
- There is no water at any fixture
- The meter box is full of water
- Pressure has collapsed rather than declined
What to expect
How the visit works
Establish the boundary first
Whether the fault is on your side of the meter or the utility's decides who pays, and it is worth knowing before calling anyone out.
Isolate and make safe
The supply is shut off at the correct valve to stop the escape while the repair is arranged.
Locate the break
The position and depth are traced so the excavation is targeted, which matters more here because these lines are usually deep.
Repair to standard and test
The failed section is replaced, pressure tested and inspected where the jurisdiction requires it, and the surface reinstated.
What's included
What you get on every job, whoever we send.
- Responsibility boundary established before work is agreed
- The escape stopped at the correct isolation point
- Located before digging, since these runs are deep
- Reinstatement and inspection handled as part of the job
Questions
Water Main Repair questions
Who pays for a water main repair?
It depends which side of the meter the break is on. The utility owns the main in the street and normally the meter itself. From the meter to your house is generally the property owner's responsibility, including the section under the sidewalk or parkway. So water surfacing in the street is usually theirs and water surfacing in your garden is usually yours, though the boundary varies by jurisdiction and is worth confirming before any work is agreed.
Water is coming up in the street. What should I do?
Report it to the water utility rather than calling a plumber first. If the escape is on the main or on their side of the meter, it is their repair and their cost, and they will usually respond quickly because they are losing treated water. Calling a plumber to investigate a break that turns out to be the utility's simply means paying for a diagnosis you could have had free.
I have no water at all. Is it a main break?
It might be, but check the simpler explanations first. Ask a neighbour whether they have water, because a supply interruption affecting the street is the utility's and often already known to them. Check that your main shutoff has not been closed. And in cold weather, consider a frozen service line, which produces exactly the same symptom. A genuine main break usually shows itself with water surfacing somewhere.
Related services
Water Line Repair
Repairing the buried supply line between the meter and the house, where a leak shows as a wet patch of ground and a rising bill rather than a drip.
See what this coversWater Main Replacement
Replacing the main line from the meter to the property, including permitting, utility locating and reinstatement of whatever the route crosses.
See what this coversWater Line Replacement
Replacing the buried supply line to a property, including trenchless methods that pull new pipe through without opening the whole route.
See what this coversWater Heater Repair
Diagnosis and repair of gas, electric and tankless water heaters, including no-hot-water calls, leaks, pilot problems and sediment flushing.
See what this covers
Get it fixed
Water Main Repair, handled locally
Call with your ZIP code and what you are seeing. We route you to a licensed plumber in your area who does water main repair every week.
- Licensed and insured
- Answered 24/7
- Price before work