FAQ

Expect an estimated $150 to $400 in Old Bridge, and up to an estimated $450 when the leak is on a long or deep buried service line. What moves a visit within that range is how much is still unexplained when we arrive: a meter that is plainly moving and one stain is a short job, while a still meter, a damp basement wall and a rainy week means groundwater has to be ruled out before the supply is searched. No verified local average exists for this township, so none is printed here. Repairs are quoted separately, after the source is marked.

Usually because more water passed through the meter than you realized, and the meter itself will tell you whether it is still happening. Close every faucet, check that nothing is filling, and watch the low-flow indicator. The usual suspects are a toilet that keeps refilling, a softener stuck in its cycle, an outdoor faucet left cracked open, or a leak. OBMUA reads its meters by radio, so nobody walks past yours, and a slow creep can run for a full billing period unnoticed. One catch in this township: if your meter is on the basement wall, a leak on the buried line outside never reaches it, so a high bill points inside the house, not at the yard.

Yes. You can question it with OBMUA's billing office, and you will be in a far stronger position with readings of your own. Write down the meter's number twice, a day apart, with the house used normally, and compare that daily use with the bill. Then do the quiet-house test: everything closed, low-flow indicator watched. A still dial and normal daily use point to a billing question for OBMUA. A moving dial means the water really went through the meter, and the useful next step is finding where it went, which is our part.

Ask OBMUA for your own address before anyone prices a repair. We have not found OBMUA's rule on which length of the service line belongs to the utility and which to the owner published, and we would rather you hear it from them than from a guess. What we can establish is where the leak is and which side of the meter it sits on. If the line turns out to be an old material, ask OBMUA how its line inventory lists your address too: a 2021 New Jersey law gives water systems ten years to replace lead service lines, the part on private property included.

Because a lot of basement water never came out of a pipe. Rain and groundwater reach the floor through the wall, through cracks, or up through the cove where floor and wall meet, and none of that moves your meter. Old Bridge's housing plan notes wetlands and stream floodplains throughout the township, so it is a real possibility here. The tell is timing: water that arrives after heavy rain and dries out in a dry spell is coming from outside. If it appears in dry weather too, or a pool strip reads total chlorine on the puddle, test the supply before calling a foundation contractor.

A running toilet, more often than anything hidden in a wall. When the rubber flapper at the bottom of the tank wears, water seeps past it day and night, too gently to hear, and the tank keeps topping itself up; only the bill and the meter notice. To check, tint the tank water with a little food dye, leave the toilet unflushed for twenty minutes, then look for color in the bowl. A new flapper is a hardware-store part, so rule this out before paying anyone, us included.

Yes, if you have no way to shut it off, if it is reaching the electrical panel or outlets, or if a ceiling is bulging with water. Otherwise, once the main valve is closed, most leaks are a job for the next morning. In a house with a basement that valve usually sits on the wall where the water line enters. Find yours on a calm afternoon and show the household, because when a frozen pipe lets go as it thaws, the first five minutes decide how much gets soaked.

Yes, when you can see where the water is coming from: a dripping trap, a burst you can point at, a weeping valve. That is a repair, and a plumber is the right call. When you cannot see the source — a stain that keeps spreading, a meter that moves with everything closed, a wet basement floor with no obvious cause — locating comes first, so the plumber arrives knowing exactly where to work. In New Jersey, that repair should be done under a master plumber license you can look up on the Division of Consumer Affairs site.