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Who owns the water service line in Puyallup, WA

Which part of the pipe is yours

  • Water service line

    Yours from the meter 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

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

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

Puyallup owns the service connection and meter it installs; the water lines beyond the end of the City's service connection or meter are the customer's. Section 14.02.220(5) of the Puyallup Municipal Code provides that "The city will not be responsible for the installation and maintenance of the water lines beyond the end of the city's service connection or meter." This is Puyallup's own statement.

Puyallup
Title to the service connection and meter. Section 14.02.220(4) provides that the service connections, meters and other facilities furnished by the City "are the property of the city, which has the right to repair, replace and remove them upon discontinuance of service." The code does not say in the same words that the City maintains the service connection.
The property owner
The water lines beyond the end of the City's service connection or meter.

What decides which applies

The City installs the service connection from its main to a point it chooses between the curb line and the property line, and installs the meter. The customer's part begins at the end of the City's service connection or meter. About 78% of Puyallup's land is inside the City's water service area as the Washington State Department of Health maps it, and this answer applies only inside that area. Other systems serve the rest under their own rules: Fruitland Mutual Water Company about 18%, Tacoma Water about 2% and Valley Water System about 2%. Check the name on your water bill.

Sources

Puyallup Municipal Code section 14.02.220

Checked

What the pipe is made of

Washington 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.

Puyallup: 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 Puyallup'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.
Puyallup: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

The sewer lateral leaving your property is a separate pipe, run by a separate authority, and who is responsible for it is decided separately. In many places the two answers are opposites.

Sewer lateral requirements in Puyallup, WA

Look up a specific address

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

Search for an address