Water Line Repair in Mount Rainier, MD

Local conditions

Mount Rainier began as an early-1900s streetcar suburb right on the DC line, next to Woodridge, and a large part of the city is a National Register historic district full of Sears kit houses and Craftsman homes. Housing that old makes galvanized supply pipe likely in many homes. The city doesn't run its own water system; WSSC Water provides water and sewer, and the city posts WSSC sewer rehabilitation notices for its streets. Even though the District starts a block or two away, DC Water's rules and programs don't apply here.

WSSC says a portion of the service line is utility-owned and the other portion is customer-owned. Its What's Your Pipe Type? map, built from more than a century of plumbing records, lets you look up your address and see whether the line is recorded as lead, galvanized requiring replacement, or unknown. WSSC banned lead as a service line material in 1954, and many Mount Rainier homes are older than that.

Patch it or replace it?

Signs of trouble

• Brownish water when a tap first opens
• Pressure that has slowly faded over the years
• A wet or settling strip of ground from the sidewalk toward the porch
• Seepage at the foundation where the line enters
• A meter that turns while every fixture is off
• Water pooling near the sidewalk after dry weather

Timing and seasons

Old pipe tends to give up during temperature swings, when frozen ground shifts in winter or dry soil shrinks in late summer. Kit houses and bungalows often have the line entering through an old block or stone foundation, which needs careful sealing once new pipe goes in. If you're planning a renovation, replacing an aging service line at the same time can save a second round of digging. The work requires a WSSC permit and a plumber holding a WSSC license, and the city's Code Compliance office handles any city building permit the project also needs.