Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Most attorneys will tell you the standard of care is an important factor in establishing negligence. Here, the other licensed plumber is helping with this issue - saying a regulator (which probably costs less than $20) should have been installed to control the pressure. Your landscaper's statement that he can't control the city's water pressure is incorrect. He can (and should have) by installing a $20 pressure regulator. All licensed contractors are required to post a performance bond through the Contractors State Licensing Board. Filing a claim for this bond is an avenue to pursue if your landscaper doesn't compensate you for what happened.

Kevin B. Murphy, B.S., M.B.A., J.D. - Mr. Franchise

Franchise Attorney

Kevin B. Murphy, B.S., M.B.A., J.D. - Mr. Franchise

Franchise Attorney

You probably don't have 150 psi. in your house. Is water metered in your city? If so, the meter probably contains, or is closely coupled to, a regulator. If you water is not metered, there is nevertheless going to be a regulator somewhere between the water main and your house. For about $18, you can buy a pressure gauge and coupler that you can attach to various hose bibbs (installed before the landscape irrigation was) to see what your house static water pressure is - probably around 55 lbs. Test with no water running in the house.

If, as I suspect, your lanscaper cut in the irrigation between the meter and the water main, instead of tapping into metered water, you are also "stealing" un-metered water from the city. How he managed to shut off the water to do the cut-in is another piece of the puzzle, to be sure, so maybe this theory is incorrect.

Unless the arrangement of piping is very misleading, I think the landscaper made a bonehead mistake. The excess pressure should have been obvious when he tested the performance of the system. The water flow and coverage would have been way in excess of design.

A medium-flow pressure regulator for 1" iron pipe costs $11.16 at a nearby supply house. However, the real mistake may have been cutting into unmetered and unregulated water in the first place, rather than omitting installation of a(nother) regulator

Whipple may be right. The California Plumbing Code requires water to be reduced to not more than 80psi before being introduced into a plumbing system. The two possibilities are that your entire residential system is over pressured, or the contractor cut into the supply line before the pressure regulator (which is not the same as the meter, so it could be before or after the meter even if it is before a regulator). You need to find out where your contractor tapped in and whether it is before an existing regulator or if you lack the necessary regulator. If your entire system lacks the required regulator, then the contractor may not be at fault. I am not at all sure he would be under any obligation to test your water pressure rather than assume your system was as it should be. If he turned off all the water to your property, and then installed his system and then turned on the water and everything worked, he would not be to blame. On the other hand, if he cut into the system between a meter and a regulator, or before the meter (not sure how he could have done that) then he is pretty clearly at fault and liable for the damage.

I should also add for clarity that the Implied Warranty of Merchantability applies to sale of goods under the Uniform Commercial Code. It has no application to a construction contract. If this is the contractor's fault, it is a straight up construction defect case.

Mr. Whipple and Mr. McCormick raise interesting points. You have an interesting case, and may have to pursue a construction defect case. I would not wait too long, the statute of limitations is running now.