FREDERICKTOWN — Many Fredericktown village homeowners recently received an official-looking document regarding water line, but not sewer line, service coverage. The material offers “insurance” to cover the cost for the maintenance and repair of outside water lines at individual residences.

Village administrator Gary Gallogly said the village had nothing to do with the mailings and does not require residents to have water line service coverage.

“I know nothing about this company one way or another,” he said. “Homeowners are responsible for the maintenance and repair of water service lines from the tap-in at the curb to the house, but the village is not requiring that they purchase this coverage.”

Gallogly said that during the course of a year, the village might average one service line problem a month at the most.

“There are a lot more people having sewer line problems than they do with the water lines,” he added.

“I would say if someone has an older home, with a galvanized water line coming into their house, some sort of coverage might be well worth considering,” continued Gallogly. “That service line has probably been in the ground at least 40 years or more. My recommendation to anybody when they have a water line break on a galvanized service, if they’re not going to replace it at that point in time, to plan to replace it pretty soon. With [galvanized] lines that have been dug up and exposed to movement for the repair and had air introduced, it usually doesn’t take long for problems to pop up again.”

Gallogly said problems with plastic or copper service lines are less likely to occur.

The solicitation mailings were sent on behalf of the Miami, Fla.-based Home Service USA Repair Management Corp., which the Better Business Bureau Web site rates as an A+ enterprise.

Gallogly pointed out that Columbia Gas, through a partners program, also offers the same type of water line service coverage.