The City Regulates the Meter, Not the Well | The Backflow Half Is on Our Quote | 24/7, 365 | 5-Year Workmanship Warranty
Irrigation pump work in Apopka has a second half that rarely appears on the quote, and it is not on the pump.
If the property has a City of Apopka water meter as well as an irrigation system, the City treats it as a potential cross-connection and requires a specific assembly on the potable meter, on a testing cycle the City sets. We do the pump work itself, on wells across Apopka and the unincorporated fringe around it. What this page adds is the part of the job the City regulates, so the full cost is clear before you commit to anything. On a well with no City connection, that second half does not apply.
The code's trigger has nothing to do with how deep the well is or how much it draws. For a residential property, it is a City service connection, plus an irrigation system, plus any one of the conditions below.
The City rewrote this part of its code from scratch. Ordinance 2894, adopted December 15, 2021, repealed the whole of the former Article V and enacted a new one in its place. The City reported at the time that the state required it to begin mandatory testing in March 2022 and that it had been given an extension to work through the number of devices involved. Anyone working from what Apopka required before December 2021 is working from a repealed article.
The operative provision reads that all water customers with residential service connections and irrigation systems are required to install a reduced pressure principle assembly backflow preventer, in accordance with the City's Manual of Cross-Connection Control, if their premises contain an actual or potential cross-connection, which includes premises with an auxiliary or reclaimed water system, an irrigation system using potable water, or a wet-pipe sprinkler or wet standpipe fire protection system using potable water. For non-residential connections, there is no test to fail: all water customers with a non-residential service connection are required to install one, full stop.
The word that does the work is auxiliary. The City's own manual defines an auxiliary water system as a pressurized system of piping and appurtenances using water other than the potable water supplied by the community water system, and it names the sources: a well, pond, lake, spring, stream or river, and reclaimed water. Under that definition, a private irrigation well is an auxiliary water system, and the code's concern is the potential for a connection, not proof of one. If that reading looks aggressive to you, it is the City's reading to confirm or correct, and worth a call before you assume either way.
Placement, retesting and record-keeping are all specified. The assembly goes downstream of the water meter, or at a location approved in writing by the City, but in all cases before the first branch or water distribution pipe off the customer's service pipe. Inspections are required following installation or repair and at least every two years thereafter for residential connections, and at least once a year for non-residential ones. A device that fails to meet performance standards must be repaired and retested, or replaced, within 14 days. Copies of all testing, maintenance, and repair records go to the City within five days of the work.
Here is what the City's manual assigns by irrigation source, for a residential connection of one inch or less and, in the last row, for everything commercial.
That reclaimed row needs a word of explanation, because read alone the two documents look like they disagree. Section 78-210(a)(1) groups an auxiliary or reclaimed water system together and calls for a reduced pressure principle assembly. The manual's table is more graduated: a dual check for a residential reclaimed source, and a pressure vacuum breaker or a reduced pressure principle assembly where the irrigation runs on City potable water. The reconciliation is in the ordinance itself. It requires the assembly to be installed in accordance with the City's Manual of Cross-Connection Control, and Section 78-209(b) states that the program is intended to meet the requirements set forth in the manual. So the ordinance sets the general requirement and the manual grades the device by degree of hazard. Confirm your own row with the City before anybody buys anything, because these devices are not interchangeable and one of them cannot be tested at all.
For a well, there is no ambiguity. Ordinance and manual agree: reduced pressure principle assembly. If you are putting an irrigation well on a City-metered property in Apopka, that is the requirement, and it is worth knowing at the start when it can still be planned for.
Two things behind all of this surprise people, and neither sits in the part of the code anyone reads. The code authorizes the City and its agents to enter private property to inspect for actual or potential cross-connections, to test backflow preventers, to inspect reclaimed systems, and to identify auxiliary water systems. And the City's manual sets out how a property gets flagged in the first place: the department may obtain the status of any wells on the property from the Department of Health, may examine permitting records to determine the presence of auxiliary water systems, and may use information systems such as satellite imaging to make determinations, which may be confirmed by a site inspection. A well that was never mentioned to the City can still be found.
A reduced pressure principle assembly is not part of your irrigation system. It sits on the City's potable service, protecting the public main from whatever is on your property. That is why it can be required by a well that never touches the City's pipes. The City's concern is the possibility of a connection and not the fact of one.
It also means the work is divided between trades, and the City says so. Its manual requires that assemblies be installed only by a licensed plumber, by the property owner acting under Chapter 489 of the Florida Statutes, or by a fire protection contractor where that applies, and that every assembly be tested at installation by any of those same parties. The City keeps an approved tester list, and a test kit without a calibration report dated within the past 12 months has its result rejected. On filing, two different clocks appear in the City's documents: the ordinance gives five days for testing, maintenance and repair records, while the manual gives three working days for test results in one section and thirty days in another. Ask the City which applies to your job; do not assume the longest one.
We are a pump and well service company. We do the well, the pump, the pressure system, and the controls. We are not your backflow installer and not your certified tester. What we will do is tell you the requirement exists before you commit to anything, so the number in your head is the real one.
On-site workAsk the City's utilities department three things: which device your address needs, whether your job needs a plumbing permit, and who is currently on the approved tester list. One call settles all three, and it settles them for your property rather than in general. Do it before the pipe is bought.
Establish whether reclaimed water is available to the property, because it changes the picture. Apopka's code requires that, where available, the owner of every lot or parcel within the city utility service area, developed for residential, public, commercial office, industrial, warehousing, or multifamily use, shall connect the premises to the reclaimed distribution system. It also prohibits cross-connection between the reclaimed system and other water sources and makes removal costs a lien on the property. A property heading for a reclaimed connection is a different design problem from one that is staying on a well.
On-site workThe reason this page focuses on the code, not on pumps, is that the code is the part that rarely reaches a quote. A well, a pump, and a controller price out simply enough. A well, a pump, a controller, an assembly on your potable meter, a certified test at installation, and a retest every two years with records filed inside five days is a different commitment, and you should hear about it from whoever quotes the well.
We are not the licensed plumber who fits your assembly and not the certified technician who tests it. Saying that in print costs us nothing and saves you finding out in week three. Where a job requires a trade outside ours, we name it, point you to it, and you hire it directly.
Pumps, tanks, switches, panels, starters and the wiring between them. It is what we have done across Orange, Seminole and Lake counties for decades, and it is the part of an Apopka irrigation system that actually fails. The detail is in the next section.
We dispatch 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and a call with no water is guaranteed to arrive within 2 hours. Irrigation is rarely the emergency; the household supply on the same property sometimes is, and it is the same crew and the same number either way. Call (407) 809-8805.
Pump Repair Services is a family-run shop whose owner has worked on Central Florida wells for over 40 years. We are licensed and insured; you get one all-in price after an on-site diagnosis, and the work carries a 100% workmanship warranty for five years.
Diagnosis, repair and replacement of submersible and surface irrigation pumps, pressure tanks and pressure systems, control panels, pressure switches, starters and the wiring between them, on lots from a quarter acre to a commercial site. When the source is a lake or pond rather than a well, the suction side is the first thing to look at, and our Tavares page explains how those systems differ.
We do not drill new wells, perform well screening, or install new constant-pressure or variable-frequency drive systems, though we service existing ones. Reverse osmosis and solar pumping are outside our scope. Backflow assembly installation and certified backflow testing are outside it too, for the reasons set out above.
In the narrow sense, no. Apopka's code has no well construction article, no well abandonment article, and no wellfield protection ordinance. Your well is governed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the St. Johns River Water Management District, and the county health department. What the City regulates is your potable service connection, and a well on the property is what brings that connection into scope.
Because the code's test is whether the premises contain an actual or potential cross-connection, and a second pressurized water source on the same property is treated as a potential one. The City's manual defines an auxiliary water system to include a well, a pond, a lake, a spring, a stream, a river, or reclaimed water. The assembly protects the public main against two systems being joined that should stay separate, whether or not anyone intends to join them.
Following installation or repair, and at least every two years afterward for a residential connection or at least once a year for a non-residential one. If it fails to meet performance standards, it must be repaired and retested or replaced within 14 days. Copies of all testing, maintenance, and repair records are sent to the City within five days of the work being completed or of the City's request.
The code authorizes the City and its agents to enter private property for these inspections, and the City's manual states that refusal of access shall be cause for discontinuing potable or reclaimed water service. There is a longer enforcement list behind that in Sections 78-212 and 78-213, up to and including the City fitting the device itself and billing the water account.
The same crew and the same number answer for everything below, anywhere in the three counties.
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Tell us the address and what you are trying to irrigate, and we will quote the pump side properly and tell you plainly what the City is going to want on the meter side. You can call the City yourself first; we would rather you did. (407) 809-8805
Call (407) 809-8805We dispatch help 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and evaluate your system in person for a firm quote.
