I received a cross connection control notice — what happens now

What the letter is actually about

Somewhere on your property there is a valve on the water line — often near the meter, in a mechanical room, or on an irrigation or fire sprinkler system. Its job is to stop water flowing backwards out of your building and into the public drinking water supply. If it fails, whatever is in your pipes can end up in someone else's tap.

Because it is a safety device that fails silently, the law where you live requires it to be tested once a year and the result filed with your water supplier. The letter is the annual reminder. The jargon on it — cross connection control, backflow prevention assembly, purveyor — means, in order: stopping water going the wrong way, the valve, and whoever supplies your water.

What you have to do

1. Hire a certified tester. You cannot do this one yourself, and neither can a general handyman — it takes a specific certification and calibrated test equipment, and a report from anyone else will be rejected.
2. They test it, usually in under an hour, and fill in the form your authority requires.
3. They file it. In most places the tester sends the report directly. Ask them to confirm it has gone — that is the step that gets missed, and the one you get chased for.
4. Keep a copy. If the filing goes astray, your copy is what proves the test happened.

The deadline is on your letter

Read the date on the notice rather than assuming a year. Two things catch owners out, and both make you late while feeling early:

• In some places the clock starts when the letter was sent, not when you get the test done. In the Capital Regional District the report must be received within 35 days of the notice — a test on day 34, filed on day 36, is late.
• In some places the date is fixed in the calendar, not an anniversary. Terrace wants every device done by 1 March whatever month it was last tested; the City of North Vancouver works to July.

When is my backflow test due goes through this properly, and your authority's own page has its exact rule with the bylaw it comes from.

What it costs

You pay, not the utility. Bellevue's programme puts it plainly — testing is required “at the owner's expense” — and every other authority we have read works the same way.

We are not going to quote you a price, because we would be guessing. Testers set their own rates and we have not surveyed them. What we can tell you is what moves the number: how many devices you have (it is charged per device, and a building can easily have three or four), how easy they are to get at, and whether the test passes. A failure means a repair and a second visit to retest, which is the expensive outcome.

If you have a quote and want to know whether the work described is what the rule actually requires, your authority's page lists what the report has to contain.

What happens if you ignore it

It escalates, and it ends at your water supply. Seattle Public Utilities says it “may assess non-compliance charges and possibly terminate water service”. Bellevue sends a first letter, then a second “notifying the customer that the City may shut their water off”, then a third, then a door hanger. In the Capital Regional District the assembly is formally deemed defective 45 days after the filing deadline passes, which is a problem at your next insurance renewal or sale.

None of that happens quickly, and all of it is avoidable by booking the test.

Find the rule where you are

We publish what every authority we have screened actually requires — the address the report goes to, the deadline, and the bylaw or regulation it comes from, with the date we last read it. Nothing is gated.

• 46 British Columbia authorities
• Washington State, and 5 of its water purveyors

One warning about that list, because it affects you directly: 18 of them publish no intake address at all. If yours is one, you cannot independently check the report landed, and the only thing that protects you is your tester's confirmation and your own copy.

Related

• My backflow test failed — what happens now
• When is my backflow test due

We make the software testers use to fill in your authority's own form and file it — what that looks like. This page is here whether or not you ever need us, and if something on it is wrong, tell us.