Main Water Line Replacement
in Palo Alto, CA
The line running from your meter to the house, replaced or repaired in Palo Alto homes by JetPipe, a family owned plumbing company. We locate the leak before we dig and pull the new line through rather than trenching the yard.
A Failing Service Line Rarely Starts With a Flood
The main line is the one pipe in the house that can fail quietly for months, because most of it is buried and none of it is somewhere you look.
Grass greener in one strip than the rest of the lawn, or ground that stays soft in a dry stretch. Water is finding the surface somewhere along the run.
Shut every fixture in the house and watch the meter. If it is still turning, water is going somewhere between the meter and the house.
Not one weak faucet. Every fixture down together points upstream, at the service line or the regulator rather than at the plumbing inside.
A service line leak is the usual answer when the household did not change and the number did.
We Draw the Plan and Get the City Permit
Replacing the line from the meter to the house needs a city permit. For main water line work we draw the plan ourselves, and our permit department pulls the permit through the City of Palo Alto's online Accela portal, so you are not the one filling out forms. Work starts once the permit is issued. We confirm what the city requires at the estimate.
You get a written price before any work starts. The replacement itself typically takes 1 to 3 days depending on the project, the length of the run and what sits on top of it.
The city inspects the work, first before the pits or trench are closed, and again after everything is backfilled if the city calls for it. We confirm the inspection steps at the estimate. One of our employees attends both inspections with the paperwork, so you never need to be home for them.
The Meter Is the City, Everything After It Is Yours
Water in Palo Alto is delivered by City of Palo Alto Utilities, which owns the main in the street and the service up to the meter. Your responsibility begins after the meter. The line from the meter to your house belongs to you, and so does everything that happens to it.
That boundary is where most of the confusion happens, because a leak on either side of it looks identical from the sidewalk. We locate the leak first and tell you which side it is on. If it turns out to be the city side, which means anything before the meter, we will say so and you will not be paying us to fix something that is not yours.
We Find the Line Before Anyone Touches the Lawn
Plenty of water line work goes wrong at the beginning rather than the end, when somebody starts digging on an assumption about where the pipe runs. We locate the line electronically and narrow down the leak before the first shovel goes in.
That matters in Palo Alto, where older lots often have mature trees, established landscaping and a long run from the meter to the house. Service lines here were installed across several decades under several different conventions, they do not always run where the plans say, and on older lots they have often been rerouted at least once by somebody whose paperwork is long gone.
The New Line Gets Pulled Through, Not Laid in a Trench
We run trenchless and pipe bursting equipment ourselves. Instead of an open trench from the meter to the house, the work needs a pit at each end and the new line is drawn through the ground between them. Your lawn, your walkway and your driveway mostly stay where they are.
This is our own equipment and our own crew, so the schedule stays in our hands.
Where a run passes under something that cannot be worked around, or where the existing path is too tight to pull through, open excavation is the right answer and we will tell you that at the estimate rather than partway through the day.
The Age of the Street Usually Predicts the Pipe
Professorville, Old Palo Alto, Crescent Park and Downtown North. Older lots with mature trees and long runs, and old galvanized or copper service lines, some rusted closed from the inside. Pressure falls off so gradually that the household stops noticing, and the first real signal is often a repipe estimate that mentions it.
The Eichler tracts, Barron Park and Midtown. Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow, Green Gables, Charleston Meadows and Palo Verde are slab on grade, so the routing of the line needs care. Barron Park and Midtown are postwar homes, often with mature trees planted directly over the run. Trenchless earns its keep here more than anywhere.
Remodels, rebuilds and ADUs. Newer lines in good condition, where a failure is usually a single point rather than the whole line, and a repair beats a replacement.
Water Lines We Have Replaced
Real jobs we have completed. No stock photos.
Financing through Synchrony with $0 down and 0% interest when you pay the full balance within 6, 9, 12, or 18 months. You pay exactly the amount on our invoice. Subject to credit approval.
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Water Line Work Across Palo Alto
We are based in Sunnyvale and serve Palo Alto homes, which puts most Palo Alto addresses a short drive away.
Professorville, Old Palo Alto, Crescent Park, Downtown North, University South, College Terrace, Barron Park, Midtown, Charleston Meadows, Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow, Green Gables, Palo Verde
The map shows where we work most weeks, not a fence. We are based in Sunnyvale and we regularly take jobs in Palo Alto. One call tells you whether we can reach you and when.
My water bill climbed and nothing changed at home. Where do I start?
A quick check at the meter comes first. Turn off every fixture in the house, then watch the dial. If it moves with everything closed, water is escaping between the meter and the house. In Palo Alto your responsibility starts after the meter, so we confirm which side the leak is on before any digging.
How do you find the leak without opening the whole run?
We trace the pipe electronically, then pressure test it to narrow down where along the run the water is going. By the time we break ground we know the spot rather than the general area, which matters on Palo Alto lots with mature trees and landscaping over the line.
Does a new service line come with a new pressure regulator?
In many cases yes. A regulator has a service life of its own, and leaving a worn one in place means the new pipe runs on old pressure control. We check it at the estimate and tell you whether it makes sense to replace it together with the line.
What pipe do you use for the replacement?
The choice depends on the run, the depth and what the pull requires, so we explain it on site rather than deciding in advance. A straight shot across a lawn and a run under a driveway are not the same job.
How long is the water off?
Expect most of the day for a full service line replacement, though not the whole day in every case. We tell you the evening before so nobody discovers it at breakfast.
The line runs under my driveway. Does that change things?
Pulling the new line through means a pit at each end instead of cutting the concrete. That changes the method rather than the outcome, and it is usually the difference between a repair you forget about and a driveway you rebuild. We confirm what the city requires at the estimate.