Avondale City Code 24-10: annual backflow test, 7-day records and the 20-day shutoff clock

Section 24-10(a) is the core rule:

"At the customer's expense, the customer shall cause its backflow prevention assemblies to be tested and serviced at least once a year by a certified tester."

The rest of the section builds around that sentence:

• Failed test. If the test shows the assembly is defective or in unsatisfactory operating condition, the customer makes the repairs, "including replacement or overhaul of the assembly, if necessary," and retests until the assembly passes (24-10(a)).
• Found between tests. If the department or the customer learns during the period between tests that an assembly is defective, the customer performs the repairs (24-10(b)). This subsection gives no day count. The day count lives in 24-11, below.
• Who tests. The department keeps a list of certified testers and makes it available on request to customers who must install or maintain an assembly (24-10(c)).
• Records. The customer keeps records of all tests and all servicing, repairs, overhauls and replacements, on forms the department approves, including the list of materials or replacement parts used. Then: "The customer shall submit a copy of the records to the department within seven (7) days after completion of the activity for which the record is made." (24-10(d)).

• Certified tester. Section 24-1 defines it as someone trained and certified through an American Backflow Prevention Association approved program, trained in the most current edition of the Manual of Cross-Connection Control test procedures, and "approved by the City of Avondale." A certification card alone is not the whole definition. The city's approval is part of it.
• Customer. "A person or entity with a valid city water account" (24-1). The code puts the testing duty on the customer, so it sits with whoever holds the account.
• Tested and serviced. The code pairs the two words and does not define "serviced." Read it as keeping the assembly in satisfactory operating condition. That is a reading, not a defined term.

Every customer with a backflow prevention assembly on an Avondale water service. Section 24-3 says the article applies "to all new and existing customers." Whether a given property needs an assembly at all is decided under 24-4 to 24-6, covered on the Avondale assembly types and installation page.

It does not cover a property with no assembly. It is also not a model plumbing code section: this is Avondale's own water ordinance, so the deadlines come from the city code itself.

A restaurant with a reduced-pressure assembly at the meter. The tester finds the relief valve failing. The owner has the assembly overhauled and retested. Two records exist now, the failed test and the passing retest, and each one is due at the department within seven days of its activity.

A strip-center landlord. The water account is in the landlord's name, so the landlord is the "customer" and the 24-10 duty is theirs. Whether a lease pushes testing to a tenant is a private arrangement, and the code itself speaks only of the customer.

The edge case. A fire sprinkler connection and a domestic connection sit on the same property. Both fall under the same testing duty, but 24-11(c) says water service to the fire sprinkler system is not subject to disconnection. The enforcement route there is the misdemeanor, not a shutoff.

1. 1Pull your water account and confirm whose name is on it. That is who 24-10 binds.
2. 2Ask Avondale's Public Works Department (the "department" in the code, per 24-1) for the current list of certified testers under 24-10(c), and hire from it.
3. 3Schedule the test early enough to leave room for a repair and a retest.
4. 4Make sure the record, on the department's approved form with the parts list, reaches the department within seven days of each test, repair or replacement.
5. 5Keep your own copy of every record.
6. 6If a city notice arrives about a missing or failing assembly, count 20 days from the day you receive it and act inside that window.

HQ Plumbing & Air tests, repairs and replaces domestic backflow assemblies. Fire-line assemblies are a separate trade.

• Myth: the shutoff only happens if you ignore a failed test. Section 24-11(a) also covers an assembly that was improperly tested or maintained, bypassed or removed, and an unprotected cross-connection.
• Myth: a passing test ends the job. The record still has to reach the department within seven days, and 24-12(d) puts a daily penalty on late records.
• Myth: the tester's card is enough. The definition in 24-1 adds approval by the City of Avondale.
• Myth: fire sprinkler lines can be shut off like any other. The code says otherwise in 24-11(c).
• Myth: the penalty is a small fee. Section 24-12(a) sets a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 or more than $25,000 per violation, per day, under section 1-9(d) of the City Code.

The text above comes from Avondale City Code 24-10, 24-11, 24-12 and 24-1 on Municode, read on 2026-10-04. This page explains those sections, and the official text governs.