Water main shut off in yard?

[Rick5]

Hi,

I have an older house with no private water main shut off. The city meter at the street is the only place. Although public works allows you to turn it off at the street, they have a "you break it you buy it" policy. I'd really like my own shut off valve in the yard. How much roughly would it cost to have a plumber do this? Are we talking thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars? I live in the south, so the main line is not that deep in the ground. Obviously I need to get some estimates, but I'd love to get some sense of the rough cost ballpark.

Thanks!!!

 

[Chris]

I think it would all depend on how deep, what type of line (Copper, SCH 40) and where you want the valve. I would also think something like this wouold be in the hundreds not thousands. On your meter you should have a valve on the street side (Angle meter stop) and also one on the house side of the meter (Customer service valve) Normally you dont touch the one on the street side, at least here in CA it's a no no. You are going to have to turn it off to cut in a valve so if it works fine now I would just excersize it every now and then just to keep it working fine and not bother with cutting in a valve unless you plan on shutting the water several times a year.

 

[Mr_David]

Most of the labor would be to dig it up and expose the pipe to work on
They make a special valve that connects directly to the meter.
You may have to remove the meter box but not always necessary.
If it was already exposed I could probably install a shut off valve in about 2 hrs or less

 

[havasu]

I believe was Mr David was alluding to is if you dig before the plumber arrives, you will save lots of money....

 

[Chris]

And whatever you do don't call one of us pipeline guys for this, we are expensive.

 

[Rick5]

Thanks, guys. This is helpful information.