Pricing a Backflow Test

No figures are published

CrossConnect routes calls to independent contractors who set their own prices. Any figure we printed would be invented, and on work that runs from a twenty-minute test on an accessible assembly to excavating a flooded vault and replacing a large body, an invented range would mislead more than it helped.

What moves a test

Size and type of assembly. Where it is — a wall, a heated room, a vault, a pit that needs pumping out before anybody can reach the test cocks. How many are on the property, because several on one visit is not several visits. And whether the report has to go on a particular purveyor’s form.

What moves a repair

Whether parts are available for that make and model, which on older assemblies is the whole question. Whether the failure is a rubber part, a seat, or a body. And whether the water can be turned off during working hours or the work has to happen when the building is empty.

Ask what failed and at what differential before agreeing to a replacement. That number is already written down.

What moves an installation

The device family required, which is a classification rather than a choice. Location, drainage and freeze protection — a reduced pressure assembly discharges when it operates and needs somewhere for that to go. Permits and the purveyor’s approval. And whether the building will then be a closed system, which is a second piece of work that is far less costly to do at the same time.

And the thing worth paying for

A report that is filed properly and a tester who tells you what they found. The paper is what the purveyor acts on, and the findings are what tell you whether next year is a formality or a replacement.

• Testing
• The closed system
• What we cannot tell you