Plumber Conway SC: An Unpaid Water Bill Here Can Come Out Of Your Tax Refund
Most cities collect an overdue utility bill the way anyone collects a debt. They send letters, they add a penalty, and eventually they turn the water off. Conway does all of that, and it has one more route available that most do not, because you agreed to it when you opened the account.
The City’s new service application carries a contractual agreement, and inside it is a clause stating that the City has the right, under the South Carolina Debt Setoff Collection Act, to collect any sum you owe by offsetting it against your state income tax refund. The same clause has you agree to pay the costs of doing that, including fees charged by the Department of Revenue, the South Carolina Association of Counties and the Municipal Association of South Carolina.
A dripping tap in Conway is therefore an ordinary plumbing problem with a slightly unusual tail attached to it. This page sets out what the City charges, what it can do if you do not pay, who actually owns the pipe under your street, and where the line falls between the City’s responsibility and yours.
Everything below was read in August 2026 from the City of Conway’s own pages, with every source named and linked at the foot. Where the City publishes a structure but not the numbers behind it, this page says so rather than filling the gap in.
The Clause Nobody Reads
You Agree To The Tax Offset Before The Water Is Ever Turned On
Opening a utility account in Conway means signing a water and sewer service contract. Most of it is what you would expect: you agree to abide by the rates, rules and regulations set by ordinance, code or resolution, now or as amended later. Two clauses go further.
The first says that if you are inside the city limits you will be billed for sanitation collection regardless of whether you use it, and billed for storm water runoff under the Storm Water Ordinance. That is a fixed floor under the bill that has nothing to do with plumbing at all.
The second is the one worth knowing about. It states that the City has the right, pursuant to the South Carolina Debt Setoff Collection Act, to collect any sum due and owed through offset of the applicant’s state income tax refund. It then adds that if the City chooses that route the applicant agrees to pay all fees and costs incurred through the setoff process, and it names them: the Department of Revenue, the South Carolina Association of Counties, the Municipal Association of South Carolina and the City of Conway. If the City chooses a different method instead, the applicant agrees to pay the costs of that method too.
None of that is hidden and none of it is unusual as a matter of South Carolina law. What is worth noticing is the practical effect. A household arrear on a water bill is not simply a debt to a utility here. It is a claim that can follow you into the state revenue system, and the cost of collecting it is added to what you already owe.
The Rate Structure
Living Outside The Line Costs Exactly Twice As Much, To The Cent, Three Times Out Of Four
Conway publishes a short and unusually legible rate schedule, effective 1 July 2026. Inside the city, water is a $13.99 base charge plus $2.64 for each 1,000 gallons, and sewer is a $6.83 base charge plus $4.17 for each 1,000 gallons. Outside the city, every one of those figures is doubled.
The doubling is literal rather than approximate, which is what makes it worth pointing at. The water base goes to $27.98, which is $13.99 twice. The water volume rate goes to $5.28, which is $2.64 twice. The sewer volume rate goes to $8.34, which is $4.17 twice.
And then the sewer base charge goes to $13.72, when twice $6.83 is $13.66. It is six cents out. We print it as published rather than rounding it into the pattern, because a rate table is a legal instrument and the six cents is either a deliberate rounding or a survival from an earlier schedule. We do not know which and we do not guess.
The more useful point for anyone comparing addresses is that an out-of-city bill is not simply an in-city bill doubled. The stormwater fee of $8.75 a month and the sanitation charges are billed to in-city accounts only. So crossing the boundary removes two lines from the statement entirely and doubles the two that remain. Which side of the line a property sits on changes the shape of the bill, not just its size.
Conway Runs Its Own Water And Sewer, And Outside The Line The City Is Not Certain Who Does
This is worth settling early, because in this part of South Carolina it is a genuine question rather than a formality. Several communities around the Grand Strand have no water or sewer utility of their own and open their accounts with a regional authority instead. Conway is not one of them.
The City of Conway runs a Public Utilities Department organised into three divisions, Utility Maintenance, Utility Operations and Utility Construction. It does its own plan review for new water and sewer system extensions and issues its own fee quotes for new taps and capital recovery fees. It bills through its own Utility Billing office at 1000 2nd Avenue, and it publishes its own rate schedule. When something goes wrong with the main, the City is the body that owns it.
Outside the city limits the answer becomes less certain, and the City says so itself. The rate table carries a parenthetical against the out-of-city sewer figures reading that if you are out of city, Grand Strand Water and Sewer may be the sewer provider in this area. The word doing the work is may. If your address is outside the line, the City’s own rate page is telling you that it cannot say from the table alone whether your sewer is its responsibility or somebody else’s, and that is a question worth resolving before you need an answer at short notice rather than after.
Where that regional authority is the provider, our Myrtle Beach page covers its household programmes, boundaries and charges in full, and nothing about them is repeated here. The other South Carolina cities we have documented are Charleston, Columbia, Greenville and Florence, and our South Carolina overview covers state contractor licensing.
If The Bill Goes Unpaid
A Courtesy Call, And Then A Disconnection With No Notice Attached
The sequence is published and it is short. A five per cent penalty is added to any current bill not paid by the fifteenth of the month. If the bill is still unpaid by the fifteenth of the following month, a $35 service charge is added and, in the City’s own words, the account shall be disconnected without notice.
There is a softening in the middle of that which the City is careful to describe as a courtesy rather than an entitlement. A phone tree message goes out before disconnection each month as a reminder, delivered only to accounts that are past due and subject to disconnection, and the City asks customers to keep their phone number current in order to receive it. It is not notice in the legal sense and the City does not present it as such.
Getting the water back on has two costs. The full account balance has to be paid, not a part of it, and restoration follows payment. Between 8am and 4pm Monday to Friday, excluding holidays, that restoration is done at no additional cost. Where payment of the delinquent balance arrives after 4pm, an additional $100 after hours charge is assessed.
One line in the City’s reconnection guidance is a plumbing instruction rather than a billing one, and it is repeated on the new service page as well. Before service is restored, make sure the taps are turned off, and the City adds on the new service page that sink and tub stoppers should be open. An empty house with an open tap and a closed stopper is a flood waiting for the moment somebody turns the supply back on, and it is the single most avoidable callout on this list.
Every Published Conway Utility Charge A Household Can Meet
Transcribed from the City of Conway rates, deposits and other charges page as published, effective 1 July 2026. Commercial rates are published separately and are not included here. Tap charges and capital recovery fees are quoted case by case by Public Utilities rather than published as a schedule, so they are absent from this table rather than estimated.
| Charge | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Water, in city | $13.99 base + $2.64 per 1,000 gallons | effective 1 July 2026 |
| Water, out of city | $27.98 base + $5.28 per 1,000 gallons | exactly double |
| Sewer, in city | $6.83 base + $4.17 per 1,000 gallons | |
| Sewer, out of city | $13.72 base + $8.34 per 1,000 gallons | base is 2.01 times |
| Storm water fee | $8.75 / month | in city only |
| Sanitation, one green roll cart | $33.00 / month | in city only |
| Sanitation, each additional green cart | $19.00 / month | |
| Green roll cart, to purchase | $85.00 | one off |
| Recycling roll cart, blue | $70.00 | no monthly fee |
| Service charge on a new account | $50.00 | in or out of city |
| Deposit, in city | $100.00 | |
| Deposit, out of city, water and sewer | $150.00 | |
| Deposit, out of city, water only | $75.00 | |
| Late penalty, unpaid by the 15th | 5% | of the current bill |
| Service charge, unpaid a further month | $35.00 | and disconnection |
| After hours reconnection | $100.00 | payment received after 4pm |
| Meter tampering | $300.00 to $425.00 | per incident |
Three of these repay a second look. The meter tampering charge is a range rather than a figure, $300 to $425, applied per incident where tampering is found to have occurred, and the City states plainly that it is unlawful for an unauthorised person to alter, tamper with or bypass a meter. That is worth knowing before anyone decides to move a meter box that is in the way of a driveway.
The deposit structure prices risk by geography rather than by usage. An in-city account pays $100, an out-of-city water and sewer account pays $150, and an out-of-city water only account pays $75. The $50 service charge is the same in every case.
And there are two adjustment routes worth knowing exist. Water and sewer charges may be eligible for an adjustment where a leak occurred on the customer’s side of the meter, on a Leak Adjustment Form submitted with proof of repair, and the City warns these take time to review and are not done immediately. Separately, sewer charges may be eligible for an adjustment for filling a pool, which is a narrower and less widely published route. Both need the form; neither is automatic.
Who To Ring
Three Departments, And The Emergency Line Is The Ordinary Line
Conway splits the work across three offices and the split is cleaner than most. Public Utilities holds the water and sewer system itself, on (843) 248-1770, weekdays from 7am to 4pm. What is unusual is that the after hours emergency number is the same number, which means there is no second line to look up at two in the morning and no risk of ringing a daytime desk that is closed.
Utility Billing is separate, on (843) 248-1780, at 1000 2nd Avenue, and it handles bills, deposits, starting and stopping service and the adjustment forms. There is a drive-thru drop box available at any hour, payments can be made at any Conway National Bank location provided you bring the bill, and bank draft payments are taken on the fifteenth of each month.
Public Works is a sixteen person department covering city streets and the storm drainage system, with a stormwater hotline on (843) 248-1730. It works alongside the Water Quality and Drainage Commission and Horry County Stormwater Management, and street light outages go to Santee Cooper rather than to the City at all. Water standing in the road after rain is a Public Works question. Water coming up out of a manhole is a Public Utilities question.
Two timing details from the billing side are worth having before you need them. New service applications can take up to 48 hours to process, and if you are buying a property, closing has to take place before service can be established. And a disconnection date that falls on a Friday, a weekend or a holiday moves to the next business day, which is a useful thing to know if you are timing a move around a repair.
Where The City Stops And The Work Starts
Everything above is about the account. The pipework is a different question, and the dividing line in Conway is the ordinary one: the City owns and maintains the mains and the meter, and what runs from the meter to the building belongs to the property. The City’s own leak adjustment route exists precisely because leaks on the customer’s side of the meter are the customer’s to repair, and it wants proof of that repair before it will look at the bill.
There is one billing quirk that changes how quickly you find out about a problem. The City warns that there is often a delay of a month or more between the period when water was used and the bill actually arriving. A leak that starts in one billing period may not show up as a number until well into the next, which means the bill is a lagging indicator rather than an alarm. Anything you notice before the statement arrives is time you are not paying for.
Our guide to the signs of a hidden water leak covers what to watch for before the meter or the bill tells you, and our guide to fixing a running toilet covers the most common single cause of a bill that jumps for no obvious reason. Where the water is going somewhere you cannot see, our leak detection service locates it, and the proof of repair that follows is what the City’s adjustment form asks for.
For a blocked line our drain cleaning service is the right call, for a failed lateral our sewer line repair service, and for the version that will not wait for the counter to open our emergency plumbing service. If the problem turns out to be in the main rather than on your side, Public Utilities is the number and the work is theirs.
Two other cities we documented in the same week make an instructive comparison, because all three answer the same question differently. Our Palo Alto page covers a city that asks the householder nothing at all and simply deems a property occupied and chargeable because a meter exists. Our San Angelo page covers a city that makes the householder initial thirteen separate obligations, including a duty to keep their own plumbing in repair, before the water is switched on. Conway takes a third route and attaches the debt to your tax return.
Conway SC Plumbing And Utility Questions, Answered From City Documents
Every answer below comes from a named City of Conway source: the rates, deposits and other charges page, the new service application and its contractual agreement, the Public Utilities page or the Public Works page.
The new service application says so explicitly. The contractual agreement you sign states that the City has the right, pursuant to the South Carolina Debt Setoff Collection Act, to collect any sum due and owed through offset of your state income tax refund. The same clause has you agree to pay all fees and costs incurred through the setoff process, including fees charged by the Department of Revenue, the SC Association of Counties, the Municipal Association of SC and the City itself.
Inside the city limits, the City of Conway does, through its own Public Utilities Department and its own Utility Billing office at 1000 2nd Avenue. Outside the city limits the answer is less certain and the City says so: its rate table carries a note that if you are out of city, Grand Strand Water and Sewer may be the sewer provider in that area. If your address is outside the line it is worth confirming which body serves you before you need to know.
Most likely because one of you is outside the city limits. Conway charges out-of-city accounts exactly twice the in-city rate on the water base charge, the water volume rate and the sewer volume rate, and slightly over twice on the sewer base charge. Working the other way, stormwater at $8.75 a month and the sanitation charges are billed to in-city accounts only, so the two bills differ in shape as well as in size.
A 5 per cent penalty is added to any current bill not paid by the 15th of the month. If it is still unpaid by the 15th of the following month, a $35 service charge is added and the City states the account shall be disconnected without notice. A courtesy phone tree message goes to past due accounts before disconnection, but the City describes it as a courtesy rather than as notice, and it depends on your phone number being current in their system.
The full account balance has to be paid first, not part of it. Restoration is then done at no additional cost between 8am and 4pm Monday to Friday, excluding holidays. If payment of the delinquent balance is received after 4pm, an additional $100 after hours charge is assessed for restoration. Before it goes back on, make sure the taps are off and the sink and tub stoppers are open, which is the City’s own instruction on two separate pages.
There is a route, and it is not automatic. Water and sewer charges may be eligible for an adjustment for leaks on the customer’s side of the meter, on a Leak Adjustment Form submitted with proof of repair. The City warns these adjustments take time to review and will not be done immediately. Separately, sewer charges may be eligible for an adjustment for filling a pool, on its own form.
A $50 service charge in every case, plus a deposit that depends on where you are and what you are taking. In city, the deposit is $100. Out of city for both water and sewer it is $150. Out of city for water only it is $75. You will also need a lease agreement, settlement statement or closing disclosure, and a driver’s licence, which the City notes does not have to be a South Carolina one. Applications can take up to 48 hours.
Public Utilities on (843) 248-1770. That is the weekday number, 7am to 4pm, and the City gives the same number for after hours emergencies, so there is no separate line to find. Billing questions go to Utility Billing on (843) 248-1780. Standing water in the street or a storm drainage problem goes to the Public Works stormwater hotline on (843) 248-1730. Street light outages are Santee Cooper rather than the City.
Every Figure On This Page, And Where It Came From
The in-city and out-of-city water and sewer rates, the stormwater fee, the sanitation and recycling cart charges, the service charges and deposits, the 5 per cent late penalty, the $35 service charge and disconnection without notice, the phone tree courtesy message, the $100 after hours reconnection charge, the meter tampering range, the leak adjustment route and the pool adjustment route, and the parenthetical about Grand Strand Water and Sewer outside the city, all come from the City’s Utility Billing Rates, Deposits and Other Charges page, stated as effective 1 July 2026.
The contractual agreement including the South Carolina Debt Setoff Collection Act clause and the named fee-charging bodies, the sanitation-regardless-of-use and stormwater acknowledgements, the documents required, the 48 hour processing time, the closing-before-service rule, the next-business-day rule for disconnection dates falling on a Friday, weekend or holiday, and the instruction about taps and stoppers come from New Service and Transfer Service.
The three divisions, the plan review and tap and capital recovery fee quoting function, the weekday hours and the after hours emergency number come from Public Utilities. The billing office address, the payment routes including the drive-thru drop box, Conway National Bank and the bank draft date, and the warning about the delay between usage and billing come from Utility Billing. The department size, the streets and storm drainage remit, the stormwater hotline, the Water Quality and Drainage Commission, Horry County Stormwater Management and the Santee Cooper street light referral come from Public Works.
What we could not read, stated rather than guessed at. Conway quotes tap charges and capital recovery fees case by case through Public Utilities and publishes no schedule for them, so no figure is given here. The commercial water and sewer rates sit behind a separate link this reading did not resolve, so only residential figures appear above. The City publishes no adopted code list that this build could resolve and the Code of Ordinances itself was not read, so no plumbing code edition is stated.
Several things the City does publish were deliberately not used, because this site covers them in depth elsewhere and a restatement would be worth less than a gap: its backflow testing material, its lead service line material, its smoke testing programme, its water quality reporting and its grease disposal guidance. Its do-it-yourself leak testing material was also deliberately not reproduced. No water quality or contaminant figure appears anywhere on this page. No office, address, crew, response time, guarantee or coverage claim of ours is stated for Conway, and no testimonial or performance statistic appears above.
Elsewhere on this site, our South Carolina overview covers state licensing, our Myrtle Beach page covers the regional authority that may serve addresses outside the city line, our Palo Alto and San Angelo pages cover two completely different ways a city can bind a household to its utility, and our emergency plumbing service covers what happens when none of this can wait.