Plumbing Daly City

Plumbing in Daly City's tract houses, where all of the sewer lateral is yours

Daly City's sanitation district owns no part of a house's sewer lateral, upper or lower, so the whole pipe out to the main is the owner's to keep up. The tap water has its own make-up too: about 40 percent comes from city wells in the Westside Basin, blended with San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy supply. Much of the city went up after the war, and nearly half of the district's public sewer system went in during the 1940s and 1950s.

Get quotes Call or text (415) 449-8213
Water source
About 60% SFPUC, 40% Westside Basin wells, blended
Sewer lateral
Owner's, upper and lower; the district owns neither
Public sewer age
About 46% of it laid in the 1940s and 1950s
Water heater permit
Needed to install, replace or raise; tank-type issued at the counter

Get quotes for plumbing work in Daly City

Two short steps. A local pro who takes this work calls or texts you back.

To send a request, call or text (415) 449-8213.

Free to request, and you agree the scope and price with the person you hire before work starts. In California, a job over $1,000 in labor and materials, or one that needs a building permit, must be done by a contractor licensed by the CSLB in the right class. Ask for the license number and check it at cslb.ca.gov.

Copper pipe fittings: elbows, a tee, reducers and couplings
Copper pipe fittings: elbows, a tee, reducers and couplings. Photo: Torsten Bätge, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The houses here

Doelger's dunes west of 280, a San Francisco grid to the east

Daly City's 2025 water plan divides the city at Interstate 280: the older neighborhoods lie mainly east of it, and the development to the west is newer, built mostly after 1949. That western side starts with Westlake, which Henry Doelger began in 1947 on some 600 acres of sand dunes and cabbage patches and which joined Daly City in 1948. Serramonte followed from 1963, and the city's history page has it and St. Francis Heights completed in the 1970s. East of the freeway, Crocker, Southern Hills and Bayshore share a street grid with San Francisco's Crocker-Amazon and Visitacion Valley, and Southern Hills is the neighborhood usually credited with inspiring the song Little Boxes.

The work

What a Daly City plumber is usually called out to handle

  1. A lateral the district will not repair

    The North San Mateo County Sanitation District's sewer plan says it owns and maintains neither the lower nor the upper part of any lateral that feeds its system. Its crews answer every possible sewer call and give a lateral one-time service, and the city's own answer to a clogged sewer is that residents may be directed to call their own plumber. Repairing or installing a lateral or cleanout in the street or sidewalk also needs an encroachment permit from Public Works.

  2. Water heaters in the garage

    Daly City wants a plumbing permit to install, remove, replace or raise a water heater, and tank-type replacements can be permitted over the counter. Its water heater page asks for the burner of a garage unit to sit 18 inches above the floor, though a building division policy lets a closed-combustion model sit on a garage floor that slopes to a drain or outdoors. The tank is strapped within its upper and lower thirds, and a heater a car could hit needs protection.

  3. Swapping to a tankless heater

    A tankless heater raises a house's gas demand, so Daly City asks for a gas piping plan with the permit application. It shows the meter size in BTUs, the size and length of every gas pipe, and the rating of each gas appliance, and staff review it before the permit issues, at the counter where they can. The page also notes that tankless units usually need their own stainless steel vent.

  4. Fire sprinklers on the house water line

    Daly City's amendments to the 2025 California Plumbing Code allow a residential fire sprinkler system to connect directly to the domestic water piping, but only with an approved backflow prevention device at the point of connection. Once installed, a backflow device falls under the city's annual testing rule, which requires a test when it goes in and at least once each calendar year by a tester holding a certificate of competence from the health officer.

Permits and local rules

Who answers for which pipe in Daly City

  1. The sanitation district's lateral policy

    The North San Mateo County Sanitation District, a subsidiary district of the city since 1985, runs about 176 miles of public sewer, 3,835 manholes and 8 pump stations, operated day to day by the city's Department of Water and Wastewater Resources. Its April 2025 Sewer System Management Plan states that the district does not own and is not responsible for maintaining either portion of the laterals that drain into its system. The division notifies owners in root-prone areas about their laterals and offers one-time service on a call.

    North San Mateo County Sanitation District (opens in a new tab)

  2. Sewer agencies, not the building department, govern the building sewer

    Under Ordinance No. 1484, adopted November 24, 2025, review, approval and inspection of the building sewer outside the house falls to the sewer agency, covering design standards, pipe materials, sizes, alignments and connection points. The code names the North San Mateo County Sanitation District, the Bayshore Sanitation District and the San Mateo County Health Department among those agencies, so the rules a new lateral must meet depend on which one serves the street.

    Daly City Municipal Code, Title 15 (opens in a new tab)

  3. Water heater permits and the garage rules

    The city's water heater page requires a permit before any heater is installed, replaced or raised, issues tank-type replacement permits over the counter, and asks that the replacement meet the first-hour sizing table in the plumbing code. It lists the garage elevation, the closed-combustion exception, seismic strapping, an expansion tank whenever a pressure-reducing device without a bypass is on the supply, and the gas piping plan required for a tankless unit.

    City of Daly City Building Division (opens in a new tab)

State license for this work: C-36 Plumbing, C-42 Sanitation System. Look up a contractor's license on the CSLB website (opens in a new tab).

Part by part

Daly City neighborhoods where the sewer agency changes

  • Bayshore

    The Bayshore Sanitary District, not the North San Mateo district, serves portions of Daly City including the Bayshore neighborhood, along with parts of Brisbane. A lateral question or a new connection here goes to that district and its standards.

  • Crocker and Southern Hills

    An earlier city environmental report noted that sewage from the Crocker and Southern Hills part of the district flows to San Francisco and is treated there under contract. These neighborhoods grew on the same street grid as Crocker-Amazon and Visitacion Valley across the county line.

Before you hire

Before you let a plumber start in Daly City

  • Is the estimate for the whole lateral, house to main, since the sanitation district maintains no part of it?
  • If the work reaches the sidewalk or street, who pulls the Public Works encroachment permit?
  • For a tankless heater, will the gas piping plan go in with the permit application, sized to your meter?
  • Does the plumber hold a C-36 license you have checked at cslb.ca.gov and a Daly City business license, which the city requires to issue a permit?
  • Be wary of unsolicited water testing: Daly City says it does not hire contractors to contact residents about testing drinking water.

Questions

Sewer, water and heater questions in Daly City

Does Daly City still require the water heater to be raised when a house is sold?

The city's water heater page still says so, citing Municipal Code 15.20.060. But Ordinance No. 1484, adopted November 24, 2025, repealed the former Chapter 15.20 and replaced it, and the new chapter has no such section. A replacement heater in a garage still has to meet the elevation rule the page cites from the state plumbing code, so confirm the current requirement with the Building Division before listing.

Where does Daly City's tap water come from?

About 60 percent comes from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and about 40 percent from city wells averaging 300 feet deep in the Westside Basin, which extends north to Golden Gate Park. The two are blended because a small share of the well water exceeds the nitrate limit, and the city has fluoridated the blend since June 2004. It reports no known lead service lines.

The sewer backed up. Will the city come out?

Call the Department of Water and Wastewater Resources first. The sanitation district responds to sewer calls and gives a lateral one-time service, but it owns no part of the lateral and may tell you to call your own plumber. If the blockage is in your pipe, its repair, and any digging in the street to reach it, is yours.

Who maintains the water pipe between our meter and the house?

You do. The city code makes the owner keep the service pipe, stop cocks and connected fixtures on the premises in good repair at the owner's expense. The meter is the city's, and its plumbing repairs page asks residents not to turn the meter off themselves but to have the city's water department do it.

Our irrigation has a backflow preventer. How often must it be tested?

At least once each calendar year, and also when it is first installed. Daly City's code makes it unlawful to maintain a backflow prevention device that is not tested at least annually, and the test must be done by someone holding a certificate of competence from the health officer.

Where these facts come from

Checked against these public sources in October 2026. Rules and programs change: confirm permit requirements with the city before work starts, and a contractor's license on the CSLB website.

Plumbing work in Daly City? Tell us what you see.

One request reaches local handymen and contractors who take this work. The Handyman SF connects you with them; it does not do the work.

Get quotes Call or text (415) 449-8213
HandymanNow for handymen Work in Daly City? Get job leads by text. Pick your trades and areas, take only the jobs you want. No subscription. Start getting leads HandymanNow for homeowners Get the HandymanNow app. Send a request with photos, message your handyman and follow them on the way. Download the app

HandymanNow app

Fix it faster. Find work faster.

Homeowners send a job with photos and follow their handyman on the map. Handymen get local jobs by text and take only the ones they want.

Get the appHomeowners · free Get job leadsHandymen · no subscription
Get it onGoogle PlaySoon onApp Store
Call Get a quote