Skip to main content
BelowGrid

Who owns the water service line in Fort Worth, TX

Which part of the pipe is yours

  • Water service line

    Yours from the meter to your building

    Why, and what to do
  • Sewer lateral

    Yours from your property line to your building — if certain conditions are met

    Why, and what to do
your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours. A dashed marker means the position depends on your property — see below.

If something’s wrong

Who to call first about the water service line

Fort Worth Water 817-392-4477

When to call: you see water coming out of the ground at any flow rate

Hours, after-hours and sources

Who is responsible for which part

Who to call first

Fort Worth Water

When to call: you see water coming out of the ground at any flow rate

817-392-4477

Answered: 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays

Source

Fort Worth owns the water tap and service line and maintains the water service connection from the main to the meter. Section 35-57.4(i) of the Fort Worth City Code provides that "The city shall then be the owner of the tap and service line" and "The city shall maintain water service connections from the main to the meter." This is Fort Worth's own statement.

Fort Worth
The tap and the water service connection from the main to the meter, after they are built at the property owner's or customer's expense.
The property owner
The water pipe on the building side of the meter. Section 35-57.4 gives the City the connection from the main to the meter and names no other City part.

What else is worth knowing

The dividing point is the meter. About 98% of Fort Worth's land is inside the City's water system as the Texas Water Development Board maps it, and this answer applies only inside that area; the largest other mapped system, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, covers about 0.5%. Check the name on your water bill.

Sources

Fort Worth City Code section 35-57.4, Water tap connections (Ord. 26452-09-2023

Also quoted:

Checked

What the pipe is made of

Texas publishes no statewide inventory of what service lines are made of. Each water system filed its own with the State, and federal rules require the utility to make it public, so the utility is the place to ask what is recorded for this address.

Fort Worth: official site

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.
  • This answer applies inside the area the State maps for Fort Worth's own water system, which does not follow the city limits: some addresses in the city are served by another supplier, and some outside it are served by the city. An address search checks which side an address is on.
  • This authority's service line inventory - the record of which pipes are lead, and where - has not been matched here yet. Ask the utility for yours.
Fort Worth: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

For the sewer lateral, Fort Worth says:

Fort Worth owns and maintains the sewer tap and maintains the wastewater service connection from the main to the property line; the owner has the building sewer on the property. Section 35-57.5(k) of the Fort Worth City Code provides that "The city shall then own and maintain the sewer tap upon completion and acceptance" and "The city shall maintain wastewater service connections from the main to the property line."

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

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Fort Worth, TX

Look up a specific address

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

Search for an address