Backflow Testing
The assembly you are made to test every year almost certainly protects the street from your building rather than the other way round.
Free to homeowners — the contractor pays us for the introduction, you never do.
Key point
EPA separates containment at the service connection from fixture protection inside a building, and the assembly a property is required to test annually is almost always the first kind. It faces outward: it exists so that whatever is inside the building cannot reach the public main.
Source: U.S. EPA, Cross-Connection Control Manual, EPA 816-R-03-002, February 2003.
- You are never chargedContractors pay us when we route them a call. There is no cost to the homeowner, ever.
- Every figure names its sourceThe numbers on this site come from public data and the page says which, so you can check them.
- We say where we coverCalls are routed by ZIP code to independent contractors.See the coverage
- We say when not to callIf the fix is a few minutes of your own time, this site tells you that instead of selling you a visit.
Three things about this subject are true, checkable in one free federal document, and almost never said out loud.
What this site is
CrossConnect is a referral service, not a contractor. We connect property owners and managers with independent contractors. Backflow assembly testing is normally restricted to testers holding a specific certification and using calibrated equipment, and the report usually has to reach your water purveyor — ask to see the certification and ask who files the report. We carry out no testing, we certify nobody, we do not set prices, and we never charge callers anything. Nothing here selects a device for any installation or states that any assembly is passing.One: the assembly faces outward
The manual names the service connection as the primary containment point, and it separates that from the fixture protection fitted inside a building. The assembly at the boundary is installed to keep hazards inside the premises out of the public system.
So the annual test is not a fee on your own water. It is a check on the thing standing between your premises and everybody else’s. Which changes how the whole obligation reads.
Source: U.S. EPA, Cross-Connection Control Manual, EPA 816-R-03-002, February 2003.
Two: there are two kinds of backflow and most devices stop one
Backsiphonage is the supply falling to a vacuum and atmospheric pressure pushing something into it. Backpressure is a connected system at a higher pressure forcing something in against a supply that is working normally.
Atmospheric and pressure vacuum breakers address backsiphonage and are not for backpressure. A device chosen against one event gives no protection against the other. The distinction, and what each family is approved for.
Three: the strongest protection has no moving parts
An air gap must be twice the supply pipe diameter and never less than one inch. Nothing to stick, nothing to corrode, no test kit — and EPA still requires that air gaps be inspected as often as mechanical preventers, because the thing that ruins one is a person.
Two numbers and a ruler, and the version of this that is probably true in your own yard.
And it is not hypothetical
EPA’s manual records case histories rather than warnings: a funeral home aspirator, sodium hydroxide backsiphoned during a main break with water measured at a pH as high as 13, and the propane above. All three, and what they have in common.
What we will not tell you
Which device your installation needs, how often yours must be tested, or whether an assembly is passing. The first is a hazard assessment, the second is your purveyor’s program, the third is a measurement with a calibrated gauge.
That refusal has its own page, along with the price and anything at all about the water itself.
The service itself
We connect property owners and managers with independent contractors who cover their area, and the contractors pay us when we route them a call. You are never charged.
Every page here
- Two kinds of backflowOne is a vacuum pulling, the other is a higher pressure pushing.
- Who it protectsEPA separates containment at the service connection from fixture protection inside a building.
- Which deviceAir gap, reduced pressure principle, double check, pressure vacuum breaker, atmospheric vacuum breaker.
- The air gap
- Degree of hazardThe device follows from the hazard classification, so the classification is the decision.
- Hose bibbsA hose left lying in a bucket is a direct link between whatever is in the bucket and the water supply.
- What actually happened
- The closed systemOnce water cannot flow back toward the main, a building becomes a closed system, and thermal expansion has nowhere to go.
- Testing
- What we cannot tell youWhich device, what interval, and whether an assembly is passing.
- CostWe are not the contractor and cannot quote.
Where we route calls
Tap your state for the towns and ZIP codes we route in, and the figures behind them.
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this site is public and attributed. You can go and check any of them.
- HousingUS Census BureauAmerican Community Survey 5-year estimates — the housing figures on every town page, and the table each one comes from is named on the page.
- WaterUS Environmental Protection AgencyFederal drinking-water and plumbing rules, and the public water-system records behind the coverage pages.
What happens when you call
No form, no quote tool, no waiting for an email.
- You tell us what the water is doingOne short conversation. If it turns out to be something you can fix in five minutes, we will say so.
- We route the callWe match your ZIP code to an independent contractor who already covers your area — not a call center three states away.
- They quote, you decideWe do not set prices and we never charge you. The contractor pays us for the introduction.
What to do first
Four things worth doing first. They cost nothing and they can keep a small problem small.
- Shut off the water closest to the problemUnder a sink or behind a toilet there is usually a small valve on the supply line. Turning it clockwise stops that fixture without shutting off the rest of the house.
- If you cannot find it, use the mainUsually where the supply enters the building — a basement wall, a crawl space, or a covered box near the street. Then open the lowest tap in the house, which drains the standing water out of the pipes instead of out of the leak.
- Water and electricity: stay out of the roomIf water has reached an outlet, a panel or an appliance, switch that circuit off at the breaker before going near it. If you cannot do that safely, do not go in, and say so when you call.
- Photograph it before anything is movedInsurers ask for it, and a contractor can tell more from a photograph of the leak than from a description of it.
And one case where the answer is not to call us. If the water is surfacing on the street side of your meter, that is the utility's line and not yours. Report it to your water utility — they do not charge a homeowner to repair their own main.
Know what is on the tag before you call.Make, model, size and the date of the last test are usually stamped or tagged on the assembly itself, and they decide which test kit and which paperwork the visit needs. We will route you to somebody who covers your area, selected on the ZIP code of the property, and you are never charged. Backflow is our specialty, though the number will take any plumbing request on the property.
Call (888) 764-9890
