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Who owns the water service line in Mountain View, CA

Which part of the pipe is yours

your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours.

If something’s wrong

Who to call first about the water service line

BelowGrid has no first-call guidance on file from Mountain View about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

The pipe under the street is the City's, and so is the meter. Mountain View's code says "the water service connection is owned by the city" and defines that connection as "the water meter and piping system between the meter and the city water main"; a separate section provides that "the city will maintain and keep in repair every such service connection". Your side starts immediately downstream of the meter. One condition worth knowing: that duty holds only where the failure "was not caused by the improper act or omission of the owner or tenant served by such connection". This is Mountain View's own statement.

Mountain View
The meter and the pipe out to the main, owned and kept in repair. Section 35.28.19 defines a "water service connection" as "the water meter and piping system between the meter and the city water main" and states that "the water service connection is owned by the city"; the same section describes the "city's water distribution system" as "the water distribution system owned and operated by the city, including the service connection to the city's water mains". Section 35.40 states the duty: "the city will maintain and keep in repair every such service connection, provided the failure of such service or the injury thereto rendering repairs necessary was not caused by the improper act or omission of the owner or tenant served by such connection". Section 35.16 describes what the City installs - "tapping the water main, corporation cock, pipe to extend to meter, curb cock and meter box, the latter to be set at a convenient place inside the curb".
The property owner
Everything from the meter into the building. Section 35.28.19 defines the "customer's water system" as "the water piping system located immediately downstream from the water meter on any premises", and section 35.10 places the cost there: owners "shall keep their service pipes, stopcocks, service lines, sewer lateral, plumbing, and all apparatus connected therewith, in good repair at their own expense". Section 35.11 adds that no owner "shall make any claim against the city by reason of the bursting of any pipe, the choking of any sewer, of the disarrangement of any other apparatus or appliance connected therewith".

What else is worth knowing

Two things to know before you spend anything. First, the City's duty has a proviso: section 35.40 covers the service connection only where the failure "was not caused by the improper act or omission of the owner or tenant served by such connection", so a line damaged by work on your side is yours to put right even though the pipe is the City's. Second, the sentence that puts the service connection in the City's ownership sits in the backflow-prevention division of chapter 35, whose definitions are introduced as "terms used in this ordinance". Nothing in chapter 35 defines a water service connection any other way, and three separate sections describe the same span from the main to the meter, so they are best read together - but if you are in a dispute, that is the point somebody may argue about, and Public Works is the place to settle it. Note also that not every address in Mountain View is a City water customer: the City records that small sections of it are served by California Water Service, and the State's register leaves about five percent of the city's ground with no published supplier at all. Check the name on your water bill before relying on this page. The State's register also puts a small part of Mountain View in the NASA Ames Research Center system at Moffett Field's service area; if the NASA Ames Research Center system at Moffett Field bills you, its own rules apply.

Sources

Mountain View City Code chapter 35, Water, Sewage and Other Municipal Services

Also quoted:

Checked

What Mountain View reported to the State about service-line materials

Federal rules required every community water system to inventory its service lines and publish the result. These are the figures this one filed.

The inventory records what each line is made of: lead, galvanized requiring replacement, non-lead, or lead status unknown. “Still unclassified” counts the lines whose material has not been identified. It does not mean they are lead.

Mountain View has classified more of its service lines than most of California: 0.00% of its lines are unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.

Service lines reported
18,394
Still unclassified
0 (0.00%)
Across California, 9.2% of service lines are unclassified.
Share of service lines still unclassified
  • Mountain View0.00%
  • California9.2%

What this page cannot tell you

  • This describes who is responsible for which part of the pipe. It is not a record of what your own service line is made of.
  • The State's service area map puts 95% of Mountain View's land inside the boundary it maps for the city's own water system. Within the same city limits it also maps "CWSC LOS ALTOS SUBURBAN" (4%). A share of land is not a share of homes: open space counts the same as a dense block. Measured 25 Sep 2026.
  • Classified does not mean inspected, and this system inspected less than most. Mountain View established 7.3% of its classifications by field inspection, against 22% across California; the rest come from records, the year of construction, or a predictive model.
  • These figures were submitted to the State by the water system itself and were read on 4 Sep 2026. They may not reflect its current inventory - ask the water system to confirm anything about a specific address.
Mountain View: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

For the sewer lateral, Mountain View gives the opposite answer to the one above:

The whole pipe is yours, out to the City main. The code defines a sewer lateral as running "to the point of connection to the city-owned sewer main" and says "each sewer lateral is owned by and is the responsibility of the entity that owns the property". If you have a cleanout at your property line the City will clear a blockage in the outer half free - it calls that "a courtesy", not a share of the pipe. One caution: a different section of the same chapter says the City "will maintain and keep in repair every such service connection", and the code never reconciles the two.

Your sewer lateral is yours to the main; your water line stops being yours at the meter.

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Mountain View, CA

Look up a specific address

This page describes what applies to properties in Mountain View in general. To see which authorities serve one address, and what records exist for it, search for it.

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How this compares across California