Your water service line is the buried pipe between the meter or curb stop and the main shutoff inside the house. Most homeowners never think about it until the yard stays wet for a week or the water bill doubles.
Water line replacement is the fix when that pipe is too old to trust. Three materials cause most of the calls we get across the US:
- Galvanized steel, common before about 1960. It rusts from the inside until the flow drops to a trickle.
- Lead, used in many older cities. The EPA's 2024 Lead and Copper Rule Improvements push most water systems to replace these lines over roughly a decade.
- Polybutylene, gray or blue plastic from about 1978 to 1995. Chlorine breaks it down and the fittings let go.
A new line is usually Type K copper or HDPE, sized to 1 inch for most modern homes and buried below your local frost depth. That depth is about 12 inches in the Gulf states and 5 feet or more in Minnesota and North Dakota.
Not every yard needs a trench. Pipe bursting pulls new pipe through the old path with a pit at each end. It works best on straight runs and saves the lawn, the driveway and the sprinkler lines.
Call (866) 335-0301 to talk through your service line with a local plumber near me. We go over the pipe, the method and the price before anything is booked.