The buried line between your meter and your house carries every drop you use, and when it fails you usually see it in the yard before you see it indoors. An independent plumber can find the break, explain whether the line can be repaired or should be replaced, and price the work before anything is dug.
The service line runs from the meter box near the curb to the point where it enters the house, and in McKinney that whole run sits in Blackland Prairie clay that swells in a wet spring and pulls apart in a dry summer. Older lines around the downtown square may be galvanized steel or early copper; subdivisions built from the 1990s onward are usually plastic. Either can be pulled apart by soil movement, chewed by a shifting rock, or nicked by a fence post or a new irrigation run.
Digging should be the last step, not the first. Ask the independent plumber to prove where the water is going, narrow the run down to a short stretch, then quote the repair and the reinstatement together so nothing unexpected appears afterwards.
Everything from the meter to the house is the property owner's responsibility; the side toward the street belongs to the utility. A meter test and an isolation check settle that question in a few minutes, and it can change who you should be calling.
Pressure testing, line tracing and listening equipment narrow a long buried run down to a few feet. The tighter that area is, the smaller the hole and the less lawn, drive or landscaping has to come apart.
A single clean break on a sound line can be cut out and rejoined. A line that has already failed once, or that is the original galvanized run, is usually better replaced end to end. Either way you hear what happens to the surface afterwards.
Open-cut is the straightforward approach: a trench along the route, the pipe replaced, the ground closed back up. It is simple work and it is the least expensive way to get at a line under an open lawn. The trade-off is the trench itself, which matters when the line runs beneath a stamped driveway, mature trees or a finished patio.
Trenchless replacement pulls a new line through or alongside the old one from two small pits, which leaves most of the surface untouched. It is not right for every property, since the route, the depth and what else is buried nearby all have a say. Ask which one your yard suits and what the quote includes for restoring grass, concrete and sprinkler heads.
Shut off at the meter box while you wait if water is running freely. If the water is appearing indoors instead of outdoors, start with leak detection or, on a slab home, slab leak repair. A line that has split inside the house belongs with burst pipe repair. The same repair-or-replace reasoning applies to other big-ticket items, and our repair versus replacement guide shows the questions worth asking before approving either. Larger lots in Fairview and Allen have longer runs to trace, and you can see the full list of services or see how calling works at any time.
The length of the run, how deep it sits, what is on top of it and whether you repair one break or replace the whole line. A break under an open lawn and a break under a driveway are very different jobs. Ask the independent plumber to locate it first and confirm the price before anything is opened. See how a service call works.
Usually yes, if the pressure is still usable and the water is surfacing outside rather than against the house. Turn the meter valve off overnight or while you are out so the leak is not running unattended, and tell the provider if the wet ground has reached the foundation or a walkway.
Because the clay soil here absorbs a lot of water before any of it reaches the surface. A slow split can run for weeks under a lawn with nothing visible but a higher bill and a meter that never quite stops. That is why the meter test comes first.
Some digging is unavoidable, but how much depends on the method. A pinpointed spot repair is often a single small excavation, and a trenchless replacement works from two pits rather than a full trench. The quote should say what is dug, what is replaced and how the surface is left.
Call and describe the problem to be connected with an independent plumber.