Water Line Repair

When the break on your service line is in one place and the rest of the pipe is sound, a spot repair is the right call. We open the ground at the pinpointed leak, expose the pipe, cut out the failed section or fitting, and tie in new pipe with fittings rated for buried service. Then we bed the repair in clean gravel, backfill in lifts, compact, and put your lawn, beds or driveway back. On a typical Kitsap lot that is a single morning's work and one small excavation instead of a trench across the yard.

What we find at the bottom of the hole varies with the age of the house. In Bremerton's wartime neighborhoods and the old cores of Poulsbo, Keyport and Port Townsend it is often galvanized steel that has rusted through at a thread. On 1960s and 70s homes in East Bremerton, Tracyton and East Port Orchard it is usually copper that has pinholed or a fitting that has let go. In the 1980s and 90s subdivisions around Silverdale, Port Orchard and Kingston it is polyethylene or polybutylene that has split or a barbed insert fitting whose clamps have failed. Each one gets repaired the way it should be, not the way that is fastest.

We repair in PEX or HDPE with brass or stainless fittings designed to be buried, and we never bury a repair we wouldn't be comfortable leaving under our own driveway. Where the line is a material that is simply at the end of its life, we will tell you so and give you an honest comparison between this repair and a full replacement. Sometimes a spot repair is the smart money. Sometimes it's the first of three, and we'd rather you know that now.

Everything from locating to the last rake stroke is done by our own crew with our own equipment. We don't sub out the digging, we don't leave an open hole for another company, and we don't leave until the water is back on and the site is clean.

When you need water line repair

• A single pinpointed leak on an otherwise sound line
• A failed fitting, clamp or coupling at a known location
• Damage from a fence post, stake, tree root or earlier excavation
• A split at a bend or a kink in polyethylene pipe
• A pinhole in copper where it passes under a driveway or through a foundation

How the job goes

1. Pinpoint first. We never repair on a guess. The break is located acoustically and marked before any digging, so the excavation is small and in the right place.
2. Call in locates. Before we dig we have other utilities marked so the excavation doesn't become a second problem. Where we're hand digging in a tight spot we probe and work carefully around what's there.
3. Open the ground. A hand-dug pit for shallow, accessible breaks; the mini excavator for deeper lines, hardpan or driveways. We keep spoils on tarps and protect the surrounding surface.
4. Expose and assess. With the pipe exposed we look at the failure and at the pipe on either side of it. This is where we tell you whether a spot repair is a good long-term fix or whether the rest of the line is close behind.
5. Repair. Cut out the failed section, tie in new PEX or HDPE with buried-rated brass or stainless fittings, and pressure test before the hole is closed.
6. Bed, backfill, restore. Clean gravel under and around the pipe, backfill in lifts, compaction, and the surface put back whether it's lawn, bark, gravel or pavers.

Equipment and materials

• PEX-A and HDPE pipe
• Brass and stainless buried-rated fittings and couplings
• Transition fittings for copper, galvanized, poly and polybutylene
• Pea gravel bedding
• Tracer wire where required

What shapes the scope

Every property is different, and these are the things that decide whether a job is a quick morning or a full day. We'll tell you which it is before we start.

• Depth of the line and the soil over it, since hardpan and boulders slow excavation
• What surface is over the break: lawn, beds, gravel, concrete or asphalt
• The pipe material and what it takes to transition to new pipe
• Access for the mini excavator versus a hand-dug repair
• Whether the pipe on either side of the break is sound enough to tie into
• Groundwater in the excavation and the pumping needed to work in it