My backflow test failed — what happens now
Is my water safe to drink?
A failed test is not a finding that anything got into your water. Nobody has tested your water. What was tested is the valve, and the valve did not hold pressure the way it is supposed to.
The honest way to put it: the safeguard is down, not that the harm has happened. Whether that matters much depends on what is on your side of it — an irrigation system sitting in fertiliser is a different risk from an office kitchen. If your tester or your water supplier tells you to stop using the water, do that; otherwise the failure is a repair job with a deadline, not an emergency.
Who fixes it
A plumber, or someone with equivalent certification. Not the building's maintenance person, and often not the tester either — though many testers do both, and asking yours is the fastest route. The device is either repaired with a rebuild kit or replaced outright, which is largely a question of its age and whether parts are still made for it.
Then it has to be tested again. The retest is a separate visit and a separate report. A repair that is never retested leaves you exactly as non-compliant as the original failure, and this is the step that gets dropped.
How long you have
It depends on your authority, and the one we can set out exactly is the Capital Regional District, whose bylaw is specific:
- 14 days for the failed test itself to be submitted — and in the CRD a failure goes through their portal rather than by email, which catches out testers as well as owners. Bylaw 3516 s.7.3
- 30 days to repair or replace it, retest it, and notify the Cross Connection Control Officer. All three inside the same window. Bylaw 3516 s.7.4
- 45 days past the filing deadline and the assembly is formally deemed defective. Bylaw 3516 s.28.3(a)
Elsewhere the shape is the same even where the numbers differ, and in Washington State there is no statewide failure clock at all — the water system that serves you sets its own, and it is on the notice they sent you. Find your authority for the rule that actually applies to you.
What it costs
Three separate things, and the quote you were given for the test covered only the first. The failed test, the repair or replacement, and the retest. We are not going to print a price range, because we have not surveyed what testers and plumbers charge and a made-up number on a page like this is worse than none.
What is worth knowing before you agree to anything: a rebuild kit is usually far cheaper than a new device, replacement is sometimes still the better answer on an old assembly, and the retest is a second visit you will be billed for whichever route you take. It is reasonable to ask for the repair and the retest to be quoted together.
Who is responsible for what
- Your tester files the failed result, to the place and in the format the authority requires.
- You authorise the repair and carry the deadline. The obligation sits with the property, which means it sits with you even though you did not do the work.
- Your authority may re-inspect, and will chase you if the retest does not arrive.
Related
We make the software testers use to file your authority's own form, including the failure route where it differs — what that looks like. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it the same day.