Lead Pipe Replacement
A lead water service does not fail in a way that forces its own replacement. That is exactly why it gets left in the ground.
Every other buried pipe on a property eventually tells you it is finished. Clay opens at the joints, steel loses its bore, copper weeps. Lead does none of that. The concern is not structural. Lead pipe can remain watertight indefinitely and still be a reason to replace it, because the pipe itself is the contaminant. Structurally long-lived, which is precisely the problem: it does not fail in a way that forces its own replacement.
That single fact explains almost everything about how these lines get treated. A pipe that never produces a symptom never produces an appointment. There is no morning where the pressure drops, no wet patch, no bill that climbs — so the decision is one nobody is ever forced to make, and a decision nobody is forced to make is a decision that keeps not happening. The pipe stays in the ground, working perfectly, for another decade.
Soft grey metal pipe, dull rather than shiny, and soft enough to be marked with a coin. Some properties have a full lead service; others have only a short lead connector at the main. Which of those two you have matters more than anything else on this page, because it decides whether there is a job here at all and, if there is, how far it has to go.
How lead replacement runs, step by step
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Step 1
Identify what you have
Lead is soft, dull grey, and marks with a coin. Some properties have a full lead run; some have only a short connector at the main.
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Step 2
Establish the full extent
Which portion is lead decides the scope, because replacing only part of a lead service is widely considered worse than leaving it.
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Step 3
Confirm ownership of each section
Who is responsible for which part of the run between the main and the house is confirmed with the authority before the work is scoped.
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Step 4
Replace the full run
Pulled through in one continuous length so nothing of the old service stays in the ground.
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Step 5
Flush and verify
The new service is flushed and tested before it is handed back.
What the day actually looks like
Identification comes first and a homeowner can do most of it. Find where the service enters the building, ahead of the shutoff, and look at the pipe itself. Lead is dull grey rather than bright, soft enough to take a mark from a coin or a key, and a magnet will not hold to it — which is the quick way to separate it from galvanized steel, where a magnet holds firmly, and from copper, which is unmistakable by colour. Scratching a clean spot is the usual confirmation: lead shows bright silver under the surface and dulls again quickly. If you are not certain, do not guess, and do not sand or file at it more than lightly.
What happens next is a scope conversation rather than a schedule. The extent of the lead has to be established at both ends before anything is priced, for the reason recorded in our material notes: Replaced, never repaired and never lined. A partial replacement that leaves lead in the ground is widely considered worse than leaving it alone, so the scope question — full run or not — is settled before work starts. Alongside that runs the ownership question: which portion of the run between the main and the house is whose responsibility. That is not ours to assert and it is not something to take from a contractor's website — confirm with the City who owns the section in question, because the answer sets the boundary of what we can scope. Once both of those are settled the replacement itself is a routine pull-through: two pits, new HDPE drawn in as one continuous length, tie-ins, pressure test, and a flush of the new service before it is handed back.
What decides the scope
Length is the obvious driver and it is not the interesting one here. What actually shapes a lead job is where the material changes. A short lead connector at the main and copper the rest of the way is a different piece of work from a full lead run to the house, and the two are frequently confused by people looking at the same pipe from inside the basement — what is visible at the entry point says nothing about what the far end is made of. Establishing that boundary is work, and it is work that has to happen before a scope is meaningful.
The second driver is the ownership boundary described above, which can sit anywhere relative to the material boundary. When the two do not coincide, the practical questions — who scopes what, and whether a single continuous replacement is even available as an option — follow from an answer we cannot supply. Confirm it with the City first. Everything else about the job is ordinary: access at both ends, depth, and what is on the surface between them.
What people get wrong about this
A partial replacement can be the worst outcome
Replacing part of a lead service and leaving the rest is widely considered worse than leaving the whole thing alone. It is also the natural result of scoping a job around what is convenient to reach rather than around where the lead actually ends. This is the reason the extent gets established before the work rather than during it, and the reason a quote that does not name the boundary is not a quote you can compare.
"It has never leaked" is not reassurance
It is the defining property of the material. A pressure test tells you the pipe holds water, which lead does extremely well and for a very long time. The test that would be informative is a different test entirely, and it is not one we perform — we are a contractor, not a laboratory. Testing is arranged through the water utility or an accredited lab, and it belongs before the decision, not after it.
Filters and the buried pipe are different conversations
A point-of-use device treats water at one tap. It does not change what the service is made of, it does not travel with you to the other taps, and it depends entirely on somebody maintaining it. Whatever its merits, it is not a replacement and should not be weighed as though it were one.
Disturbing lead without replacing it is not neutral
Work that knocks, cuts into or partially reroutes a lead service without removing it is a category of job worth avoiding on purpose. If a lead run has to be touched at all, that is the moment to decide about the whole run, because the decision is cheaper to act on when the ground is already open than as a separate job later.
When this is the wrong answer
Most people who arrive here do not have lead. If a magnet holds to the pipe, what you have is galvanized steel and the relevant question is flow rather than material — that is the replacement page, not this one. If it is bright metal, it is copper and nothing on this page applies to you. If what you have is a short lead connector on a section the City is responsible for, the first call is to the City and not to us; we would rather tell you that than scope work around a boundary nobody has checked. And if you have confirmed lead on your own portion of the run, there is still no emergency in it — this is a job to plan properly, with the extent established and the scope settled in advance, rather than one to start on a Friday because a page on the internet made it sound urgent.
Questions about lead replacement
The ones that come up on this work specifically. The general questions are answered on the FAQ page.
How do I find out whether my service is lead?
Can a lead service be repaired instead of replaced?
What if only part of the run is lead?
How would I know whether it is actually affecting my water?
People also ask
Answered in full, once, on the page each one belongs to — rather than repeated on every page of this site.
Nothing is quoted off a description
The camera goes down first and you keep the footage. If the answer is that there is nothing wrong with your line, that is what you will be told.