Circle City Repipe replaces lead and galvanized water service lines in Indianapolis and nearby communities, working on the private side of the line under the water utility’s rules. In Citizens Energy Group territory that work goes through a plumber registered and bonded with Citizens, who files the service line permit. Lead service line replacement here is shaped as much by the utility’s program as by the pipe: Citizens may already be planning to replace the line at no direct cost, or it may pay for the street-side portion while the owner pays for the rest. The work is carried out by licensed and insured contractors.
A service line is the buried pipe from the water main to the house. The general case, for lines that are not lead, is on the water line replacement page. This page covers what changes when the line is lead, and the Citizens Energy lead service line program guide goes deeper into the letters, the map and the agreement Citizens asks owners to sign.
What happens on the first visit
The first visit starts where the line enters the house, usually at the front basement wall or in a crawlspace. Lead is dull gray, soft, and shows bright silver when it is scratched lightly; a magnet will not stick to it. It often comes through the foundation with a rounded, bulbous joint. Galvanized steel is magnetic and threaded, and copper shows its color when scratched. The guide to identifying pipe material walks through the same checks.
That look only covers the pipe in view. A line can be copper inside the house and lead under the yard, or lead with a galvanized section spliced in. Citizens publishes a service line map where an owner can look up the material it has on record for their own address, and the visit compares that record with what is at the wall. It also notes the meter location, the main shutoff and the interior supply pipe, because a pre-1950 house with a lead service line may also have lead or galvanized pipe inside.
Why lead lines are being replaced
Lead does not wear out the way galvanized steel does. The problem is that it can dissolve into the water standing in the line. Citizens treats its water with orthophosphate, which it describes as an additive to prevent lead and copper leaching from plumbing, and that keeps a protective layer on the inside of old pipe. Treatment lowers the risk. It does not take the lead out of the ground.
Federal rules now push utilities toward removing the pipe itself. The U.S. EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, finalized in 2024, set a framework for water systems to identify and replace lead service lines within ten years, and utilities such as Citizens have inventoried their systems and mailed letters to owners. The lead service line replacement rule post covers what the rule asks of utilities. Citizens estimates that between 55,000 and 75,000 customer-owned service lines in its system contain lead.
Disturbing a lead line is its own risk. Cutting into it, or digging around it, can knock loose scale and particles. That is one reason Citizens requires a lead line that is being modified to be replaced in full, from the main to the home, rather than patched in part.
How a Citizens lead line gets replaced
Citizens’ Lead Service Line Replacement Program, approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, covers customer-owned lead service lines both in the public right-of-way and on private property. There are two paths an owner will meet.
In a Citizens project area, Citizens replaces lead and galvanized components from the main to the home at no direct cost, provided the owner signs an approved Right of Entry agreement. Citizens’ own contractor does the work, street by street, and the meter is reinstalled outside. Nothing needs to be hired; the owner’s job is to return the agreement and give access.
Outside a project area, an owner can start the replacement. The line must be lead or galvanized iron on the private side and lead in the right-of-way, and it must have been active within the past six months. Citizens pays for the right-of-way portion. The owner pays for the private side, from the house to the property line, and for moving the meter to an outside pit. Citizens offers two ways to do that part: a quote from Citizens’ contractor, or a plumber registered and bonded with Citizens who files a service line modification permit. Once the private side passes, Citizens replaces the right-of-way portion within 45 days. The bonded-plumber route is the one Circle City Repipe works through.
Citizens also replaces lead lines when they fail and need emergency repair, and when its own capital projects in the street reach them. The program guide covers how to tell which path applies to an address.
What the replacement involves
The new line follows Citizens’ standards: SDR9 polyethylene with tracing wire, sized at least 3/4 inch for a home under 2,000 square feet without irrigation and 1 inch above that or with irrigation. The meter comes out of the basement, if it is still there, and goes into a pit outside. In the lead program Citizens places it 1 to 3 feet from the right-of-way line. The meter pit relocation guide explains that part of the job.
On the private side, the work is a trench or a bore from the pit to the foundation, a new penetration through the foundation wall, and a tie-in to a new main shutoff inside. The old lead pipe is cut off and removed where it is exposed or capped where it is not. Citizens says new lines are flushed, sampled and tested. In a historic district administered by the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission, such as Irvington or the Old Northside, whether exterior work such as a new pit needs a certificate of appropriateness is confirmed per project.
Got a letter from Citizens about lead?
Find out whether your street is already in the program before paying for anything, then get the private side priced in writing.
Indiana American Water, Speedway and other utilities
Not every Indianapolis-area address is on Citizens water. Indiana American Water, which serves areas including Greenwood and Noblesville, replaces lead service lines, and galvanized lines that follow lead piping, at no direct cost to the customer while it is upgrading water infrastructure in the area. Its replacement covers any lead from the main to the shut-off valve inside the property, and it installs a valve where there is none. Owners who hire their own contractor outside a planned project pay for it themselves and are not reimbursed, so the utility asks owners to contact it first. Its guide also says a post-replacement test kit and a six-month pitcher filter are provided. The Greenwood page covers that area.
In Speedway, the town says service lines from the main to homes are privately owned, and Speedway Water Works has mailed status letters from its inventory. The town’s update said it was waiting on state guidance and funding before setting out a replacement program, so any program and owner cost there is confirmed per address. The Speedway page covers the rest of what changes in the town. Lawrence and Carmel keep their own service line inventories, and their replacement terms are confirmed per address.
Lead inside the house
A service line program stops at the house. Citizens says lead in plumbing, not just service lines, was common before 1950, and that some homes built before 1986 may have lead solder in the joints of copper pipe. Indiana American Water’s guide puts lead plumbing and fixtures beyond the inside valve on the owner. None of the programs pay for interior pipe, and there is no federal tax credit for water piping.
So the question after a lead line comes out is what is left inside. Galvanized pipe downstream of a lead line can hold lead-bearing scale, which is one reason utilities class some galvanized lines as needing replacement. A whole-house repipe or galvanized pipe replacement replaces that pipe, and when a service line is being replaced at the same time, the new main shutoff and the first run of interior pipe can be planned as one tie-in. The are galvanized pipes safe guide covers galvanized pipe on its own.
Cost and what changes it
Citizens does not publish a price for the private side, and quotes depend on the lot, so there is no typical figure here. The things that set it are the length from the property line to the house, whether the route crosses a driveway, walk or trees, whether the line is trenched or bored, how deep it runs, where the meter pit goes, and what sits just inside the foundation wall. Funding for the program reaches homeowners only through the utility: the Indiana Finance Authority’s state revolving fund lends to water systems for lead line replacement and does not pay homeowners directly.
The first question is always whether the address is in a Citizens project area, because that can take the private-side cost off the table entirely. The second is what else the house needs. A walk-through answers both and turns the rest into a written price.
