Troubleshooting
Backflow assemblies have a small vocabulary. A leak from one place means something different from a leak from another, and one of them is the device working correctly. Here is how to read what yours is telling you — and who actually handles it.
Getting this sorted quickly usually means calling the right trade first. Here is the honest split.
So if water is running and needs to stop, whoever does repairs for the property will get you sorted faster than we can — that is a different job from testing, and we would rather point you straight at it. Every entry below names who handles it. Most of them are not us, and that is the point of the page.
You will see Virginia Master Plumber in our credentials, and it is real — it is part of why the testing is done properly. Hammerhead Flow Co. still takes testing and compliance work only.
Everything below describes what a symptom generally means, how soon it needs attention, and who handles it. None of it is a repair instruction, and none of it is a diagnosis of your particular assembly — that takes gauges on the device.
By symptom
Find the one that matches what you are looking at. The blue row tells you who to ring.
Never plug, cap, or block a relief valve port. It is tempting when an RPZ is discharging onto a walkway, and it is the most dangerous thing anyone does to one of these. That port is the entire safety function. Blocked, the assembly looks fine, stops making a mess, and quietly stops protecting the water supply — which is the exact failure it was installed to prevent.
Never add a valve, hose, or fitting downstream of a vacuum breaker. Those devices only work with no pressure held against them. Anything added after one defeats it, even though nothing about it looks different afterward.
Straight answer
A backflow assembly fails on the inside, against rubber seats, under a few pounds of differential pressure. Nothing about that is visible, and a tired check valve will often seal perfectly at rest and let go under exactly the conditions it was installed to handle. Determining whether one is holding takes a calibrated differential-pressure gauge on the test cocks.
So what this page does is narrow it down: whether what you are seeing is normal, whether it can wait, and which trade to ring. Anyone who tells you what is wrong with your assembly without putting gauges on it is guessing.
Where we fit
A repaired or replaced assembly has to be tested and the result filed before the property is back in compliance — and in most jurisdictions a replacement starts a fresh annual cycle from that date. That is the part we handle, and it is where a repair service will usually hand you back.
It is also why we do not chase the emergency. A leak is a repair, and repairs are not ours at any size — no volume of work changes that.
Scheduling is a separate question, and the answer there depends on how much is in one place. Work is grouped into planned service trips, so a portfolio with enough assemblies to fill a day can justify its own trip and be turned around quickly when a deadline calls for it. A single assembly rides along with the next trip already heading that way. Either way you get a date when you book rather than a maybe — how scheduling works covers it properly.
So: get it repaired by whoever can get there. Then tell us it is done, and the testing and filing get scheduled from there.
Once the water has stopped and the work is done, the test and the filing are what put the property back in compliance. That part is ours, and it is worth booking before the next deadline rather than after it.
