A friend contacted us about a situation they are having with the water supply in their home. They first noticed that their water bill for the previous month was much higher than normal. They then called in a plumber that suggested a replacement of their pressure valve and told them there was a leak in their outside supply line and the line had to be replaced from the street to the house.
They were quoted a price close to $5,000 for the work and it was beyond their ability to pay immediately so they decided to attempt the fix themselves.
With the water line off they dug up a wet area near the home that seemed to be where the leak had occurred. What the found was PVC Pipe had been used to plumb the line from the street to their home. This is a really bad idea for many reasons. First PVC is a brittle pipe and if a contractor needed to drive a pickup truck over the line there would most likely be damage. Also the connections on a PVC pipe are not really great for underground use. Yes they can be used for things like supplying water to a sprinkler system but you would want to have a cut off just in case there was a leak like this.
Unfortunately digging up the entire lawn and replacing the PVC with Black Polyethylene or PEX Supply Line Pipe was not really an option so the best bet for them was to attempt a repair on the existing pipe and understand that eventually the entire line might need to be replaced in the future.
It was apparent that the leak was coming from a fitting connection and not from the center of the line. This is good news because it is relatively easy to cut just behind the leaking fitting and replace the fitting with a new one and a small piece of pipe to make up for the space lost when cutting out the old pipe.
The options in this situation are to use a PVC Union and glue the pipe as you normally would or some people might attach a compression type fitting to attach the pipe. Personally I would rather glue the pipe in place which is probably the most secure way to attach PVC to PVC and you won’t be worrying about a mechanical fitting coming lose or the gasket degrading.
The total cost for the repair was about $35 including Fittings, Primer, Cement and a piece of extra pipe. The time to complete the work was a little longer than what a plumber might have taken. It actually took them about 3 days to inspect the problem, get all the parts and tools necessary and then repair the pipe. Considering that this pipe probably had been leaking for the past 3 weeks and that the leak was slow, another 3 days was not a bad situation.
Does Your Insurance Cover Plumbing Repairs?
For the most part home owners insurance will not cover the cost of repairs to internal or external plumbing or sewer lines from your home to the company lines. It is normally the home owner’s responsibility to take care of these lines.
In this case the line was close to the home and not very deep in the ground so a home owner repair wasn’t that difficult. It was also easily found and this might not be the case for other problems. You may need to excavate to find the line or sewer pipe and then you hopefully can repair it without having to touch the water company or sewer lines because that connection does require a plumber that has been certified to do the work. Even so you could do much of the work yourself.
Many water companies now provide insurance for customers to cover this cost and it can be around $10 extra on your bill every month. Not extremely high priced but you do want to consider the cost over time and also research what costs there might be if you had to out of pocket the costs.
Final Note
In this situation the repair was easy and fast to accomplish. Mending of the existing line with similar products was not a problem for the home owner to complete themselves and they were able to save themselves a lot of money.
However because of the type of pipe that is being used for their supply line there is concern that in the future there may be other problems that arise.
For this reason you should understand where your supply and waste lines are located on your property. Waste lines normally have clean out access ports which you can see outside of your home and for the most part the shortest and straightest line from your home to the street will be used. These lines can be very deep depending on your specific property but expect 6 feet. Supply lines normally exit your home near your water meter and travel to the street in a relatively straight line to a cut off valve that is owned by the water company. They are the ones you need to call to have all water cut off to your home however I have known people that purchase a long socket type wrench that is on a pipe that will let them shut off the valve themselves. It may or may not be something you want to invest in.
Finally insurance is something you should consider if you don’t expect to attempt the work yourself. Evaluate the cost and possibly talk with your neighbors. If you have an older home that might have a complete variety of pipe in the ground from PVC to Cast Iron for your waste lines and ABS or even galvanized pipe for your supply lines the ability to replace that pipe under stress and in a deep hole is not something really fun to do.