Find it before you open the street
Leak detection in Aurora
A leak bill is often the cost of looking in the wrong place. In Aurora, a sewer camera cannot see a pressurized water service, and a water-service repair can include the street. Locate the leak before you approve either dig.
Three different wet places
Water under a heater is a heater question. Use repair or replacement. Sewage at a floor drain is a drain or a service-line question. Use drain cleaning or sewer repair, and remember Aurora Water's split: you own the line to the tap. A hiss, a warm spot in a slab, or a meter that moves while every faucet is off is a supply leak. That is this page.
The City's service-line page says water service lines are generally copper and cannot be videotaped. Anyone who offers a "sewer camera" for a yard water leak is using the wrong tool. Ask what method they will use, acoustic, tracer gas, or otherwise, and what it will not see. This guide will not teach those methods or invent a meter test Aurora Water did not publish.
Who might own the pipe
On an Aurora Water account, the service-line page assigns the pipe from the home to the city main, plus street or sidewalk repair after that work, to the homeowner. The city main is not that pipe. Ask Aurora Water to say whether the leak they hear is on your service or on their main before a contractor cuts pavement you may have to replace. Get the answer for the address. A neighbor's district is not your answer.
If the address is in Castle Rock and on Town water, the Town's FAQ describes a different line: the Town maintains water service to the property-line connection, and the curb-stop valve is the Town's. Do not shut that street valve yourself. That rule is not Aurora's, and it is not a sewer map. Parker is less settled on paper. Do not let a contractor invent a sidewalk boundary there.
Questions to settle first
Can a sewer camera find a water leak?
No. Aurora's service-line page says water service lines cannot be videotaped. A sewer camera belongs in the drain. A supply leak needs a method meant for a pipe that is under pressure. Ask which method, and what it cannot see, before you approve a hole in the slab or the street.
Should I open the street because the yard is wet?
Not yet. The wet spot is not a map. On Aurora Water, a leak on your service can still be your street repair. Ask the utility whether the main is involved, and ask the locator to mark both the water service and the sewer so a dig does not hit the wrong pipe. 811 is the call the City tells owners to make before excavation.
Is a spinning meter an official Aurora test?
This guide will not call it one. Aurora Water's pages reviewed here do not publish a meter-dial procedure. A moving meter with fixtures off is a reason to get a leak located. It is not, by itself, a map of where to cut. Let the person who will warranty the location explain the method.
How is this different from repiping the house?
Detection finds one leak. Repiping replaces the supply piping through the building. A single wet ceiling does not prove every pipe in the house is done. Ask for the location first. A whole-house replacement is a wider scope and is not the automatic next line on a leak quote.
