Apparently the main water lines - those pipes buried four feet under our front yards carrying our water from the street to our homes - have a life of about 80 years. At least, this is what several neighborhood residents with 1920s built homes have discovered to their chagrin and horror recently. The tell-tale sign? Look for spongy wet ground on your front lawn, particularly near the round metal water shut-off valve a few feet in from your street-property line.
According to Town and Water Dept. regulations, the homeowner is solely responsible for maintaining the water line on the house side of this round valve. Correction is expensive (i.e., thousands) and, as anyone who passed by my home this past week knows, is invasive, requiring excavation of a trench on your front lawn. Some who have this issue may be lucky and get away with only a patch, but typically the entire aging, deteriorating line will need to be replaced, necessitating tearing up three foot wide and four foot deep swathe from the street up to the house. A licenced plumber must do this work (which requires Water Dept. approval) and he will probably need an excavation subcontractor.
Don't look for any sympathy or guidance with this issue from the Water Dept. Their position is that so long as the leak is on the home side of the valve, the homeowner is completely on his own, financially or otherwise, and obligated fix the problem immediately. I brought to the Water Dept's attention the possibility of a leak and I was rewarded a few days later with a letter threatening to shut off my water, fines of up to $1000 per day and 30 days imprisonment if I did not remedy the problem within 2 weeks of the initial notification (copies of this memorable letter are available on request). There was no indication if I got to choose between the town or county lockup.
Bid out this expensive job. I got three estimates from plumbers that varied widely in price.
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