Main Water Line Repair: the Pipe Between the Meter and the House
A leak on the buried supply line runs on your meter, twenty-four hours a day, at mains pressure. It is the one leak where waiting is measurably expensive.
A five-minute meter test tells you whether the leak is inside the house or out in the ground.
Do this before you call anyone
The meter test settles it in five minutes
The service line runs from the water meter, usually in a box near the kerb or the property line, to where it enters your house. Because it is buried and pressurised, a leak on it can run for months with no visible sign, and every gallon is metered.
The test. Turn off every water-using thing in the house: taps, ice maker, irrigation, humidifier. Open the meter box and look at the leak indicator, the small triangular or star-shaped dial that spins on any flow. If it is moving with everything off, water is escaping somewhere past the meter.
Inside or outside? Find the main shut-off where the line enters the house and close it. Watch the meter again. Still spinning means the leak is between meter and shut-off, the buried service line. Stopped means the leak is inside the house, which is leak detection work and possibly a slab leak.
Corroborating signs. A water bill that stepped up without a change in habits. Pressure that has dropped across the whole house. A permanently damp or unusually green patch in the lawn along the line's route, or water surfacing at the kerb or in the street. A hiss or rush at the point the line enters the house.
Write down the meter reading and the date
Before and after two hours with all water off is objective evidence of loss rate. Some Georgia utilities offer a leak adjustment on a bill spike once a repair is documented, and a meter log plus a plumber's invoice is what supports the request. Ask your water authority. They will not offer unprompted.
Before you pay
The meter is the dividing line, usually
In most Georgia water systems the utility owns the main in the street, the tap and the meter; the homeowner owns everything from the meter to the house. That means a leak on the house side of the meter is your repair, including where the line crosses under your driveway, and a leak on the street side is the utility's.
Some systems draw the line at the property boundary rather than the meter, and a few own the whole service up to the point of entry. It varies by authority, so one call to your water provider before scoping work is genuinely worth making. While you have them, ask two more things: whether they will come and check the meter and the street side at no cost, most will, and whether a leak adjustment exists for the bill.
If water is surfacing in the street or the pavement, or if pressure has dropped for your neighbours too, call the utility first. That one is theirs and you should not be paying a private contractor to look at it.
Meter still spinning with the house shut off? That is the buried line, and it is running on your bill right now.
Talk to a Plumber NowWhy they fail
What is in the ground under Georgia gardens
Pre-1960s steel, rusted from inside
Galvanised steel service lines corrode internally, narrowing the bore with rust nodules until pressure at the house is poor, then perforating. If your house is that vintage and pressure has been declining for years, the pipe is likely at the end of its life rather than blocked. Replacement, not repair.
Late 1970s to mid 1990s grey pipe
Widely installed in Georgia during a period of heavy construction, including on buried service lines. It becomes brittle over time and fails at fittings and along its length, often with no warning. Finding grey poly at the meter or the entry point changes the recommendation immediately. See polybutylene repipe.
Seasonal movement and stress
Georgia red clay swells when wet and shrinks when dry, moving buried pipe through the year. Rigid pipe and rigid fittings take that stress at their weakest points. It is also why a repair that reinstates flexible pipe generally outlasts one that patches a rigid line.
Roots, rocks and shovels
Root pressure against a shallow line, sharp fill placed against the pipe during original construction, vehicles over a shallow run, and, commonly, a fence post, a mailbox or landscaping work that hit an unlocated line. This is why 811 locates come before any digging, yours included.
The work
Spot repair, or a new line pulled through
Locating first. Acoustic listening at the meter and along the route, and correlation equipment on longer runs, narrows the leak to a marked spot. On a pressurised line this is genuinely accurate, and it is what turns a trench into a hole.
Spot repair. Excavate at the mark, cut out the damaged length, join in new pipe with proper transition fittings, pressure test, backfill. Right answer when the pipe is otherwise in good condition, modern copper or PEX with physical damage from a shovel or a rock.
Full replacement. Right answer when the material itself is the problem: galvanised steel, polybutylene, or a line that has now leaked more than once. Modern practice runs a continuous length of PEX or HDPE from meter to house with no intermediate joints, which removes the failure points entirely.
Trenchless replacement. A pit at each end and the new line pulled or bored through, rather than a trench across the garden. Where the route crosses a driveway, a patio, mature planting or paving, this is usually the cheaper option once restoration is counted. Boring under a concrete drive avoids cutting and replacing it.
Re-routing. Sometimes the best line is not the old line. If the existing route runs under a drive or through a mature root plate, a new route in open ground can be quicker, cheaper and easier to service later.
After the repair
Pressure, permits and what to check
Pressure often changes. Replacing a corroded galvanised service with correctly sized modern pipe can restore pressure the house has not had in decades, which occasionally exposes a failed or absent pressure regulator. Above roughly 80 psi at the house you want a working regulator, or you are shortening the life of every fixture, valve and appliance inside.
Permits and inspection. Water service replacement is permitted work in most Georgia jurisdictions, and work in the public right of way needs the authority's own permit, sometimes with traffic control. Backflow protection requirements vary by system. An unpermitted service line replacement is something you will have to disclose when you sell.
Locates before digging. Georgia law requires 811 notification before excavation, and the marks must be down before the shovel goes in. Gas, power and communications share the same shallow corridor.
Restoration. Agree in writing what returning the site involves, compaction, topsoil, seed, hard surface replacement. Backfill settles over a season and a poorly compacted trench across a lawn will show for a year.
Flush and check. After a repair, run every tap and check aerators for grit disturbed during the work, and watch the meter with everything off once more to confirm the loss has actually stopped.
Bill spike, pressure drop, or a wet patch in the lawn, all three point at the same pipe.
Book Main Line ServiceQuestions we get on the phone
Answered plainly
Shut off everything that uses water and watch the leak indicator on your meter. If it moves, water is escaping past the meter. Then close the main shut-off where the line enters the house: still moving means the leak is on the buried service line; stopped means it is inside the house.
In most Georgia systems the utility owns the main, tap and meter, and the homeowner owns the line from the meter to the house, so a leak on the house side is your repair, including under your own driveway. A few authorities divide it at the property line instead. One call to your water provider settles it before any work is scoped.
Usually. A pit at each end and a bore or pull-through under the drive avoids cutting concrete or asphalt, and it is typically cheaper overall than an open cut plus surface restoration. Re-routing the line through open ground is the other option worth asking about.
Very. A buried service line leak runs at mains pressure into permeable Georgia soil and can move a great deal of water with nothing visible at the surface, especially on a sloping site or where the line is deep. The meter test with all water off is the reliable check. Document readings and dates, some utilities allow a leak adjustment once a repair is proven.
A located spot repair in open ground is commonly a single day, and the water is usually back on the same day. A full replacement, including locates, permits and boring under a drive, is typically one to two days. Work in the public right of way adds permit lead time that is out of the plumber’s hands.
Replace it. Galvanised steel corrodes from the inside along its whole length, and polybutylene becomes brittle and fails without warning, in both cases a patch is a temporary measure on a pipe whose remaining life is unknown. A continuous run of PEX or HDPE from meter to house with no intermediate joints is the durable answer.
Meter spinning with the water off?
That leak is running at mains pressure on your bill. We will locate it and price the repair before anything is dug.
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