Raleigh Water (City of Raleigh): backflow testing rules
Serves Raleigh, NC and merged systems in Wake County. Every point below comes from Raleigh Water (City of Raleigh)'s own pages, linked; check your notice for your own deadline.
Who must test
- Every connection to Raleigh Water must have containment backflow protection; commercial customers need protection by degree of hazard for domestic, irrigation and fire services, with no grandfather clause. Source.
- Newly installed assemblies must be tested by a Raleigh Water Certified Tester and the passing test submitted online. Source.
Notices and deadlines
- Residential irrigation assemblies need a passing test submitted by July 1 every 3 years; commercial irrigation is tested annually by July 1; all other assemblies are tested annually on a schedule set by the property's ZIP code. Source.
- Commercial irrigation assemblies are tested annually by July 1; other assemblies follow an annual ZIP code testing schedule. Source.
How the report is filed
- Compliance is met when a City of Raleigh Certified Tester's passing test report is submitted online to Raleigh Water's vendor VEPO. Source.
Tester registration
- Testers must keep a certification from a locally approved certification school, have annual calibration of a differential or electronic test kit, and meet other requirements of the Director; testers who lapse are removed from the list. Source.
Approved testers
- Raleigh Water maintains a list of testers approved to work within its system. The list URL was not captured: raleighnc.gov program pages returned HTTP 403 to our fetcher. Source.
If a test is missed
- Customers have 45 days to repair or replace a failing backflow assembly, then submit a passing test to VEPO. Source.
Read October 6, 2026. Program page: raleighnc.gov.