Coming Home to Fountain Hills: The Plumbing Problems That Develop While You're Away

For the many Fountain Hills homeowners who spend summers elsewhere, the return in fall comes with a particular uncertainty: what happened to the house while it sat empty through the hottest months of the year? Most of the time, the answer is nothing. But Fountain Hills summers are hard on plumbing, and a vacant home gives small problems months to become large ones.

Knowing what to look for, and checking before you simply turn everything back on, can catch a developing problem before it causes more damage or reveal one that has already done its damage so you can address it promptly. Here are the issues that most commonly greet returning Fountain Hills snowbirds.

Slab leaks that ran all summer

A slab leak is the most consequential problem that can develop in a vacant Fountain Hills home. The town's older custom homes have aging copper supply lines embedded in slab foundations, and Fountain Hills's 16 gpg hard water plus the seasonal movement of the decomposed granite and caliche soil produces pinhole failures in that copper. A pinhole that opens in June, with no one home to hear the running water or notice the warm floor spot, can run continuously until you return.

On return, check for the signs before assuming everything is fine. Walk the home in bare feet and feel for warm spots on tile or wood floors, which indicate a hot water line leaking beneath. Listen, with all fixtures and appliances off, for the sound of running water. Look for new staining or soft spots at baseboards, and any musty smell in a room without an obvious source. Check your most recent EPCOR bills, which you can usually review online: a summer of high consumption with no one home points to a leak that ran the whole time. If you find any of these signs, a slab leak detection visit can locate the source with acoustic and thermal equipment before more damage occurs.

Pool plumbing failures

If your home has a pool, the pool level is one of the first things to check on return. A pool that is significantly lower than you left it, beyond what evaporation over the summer would explain, suggests a pool plumbing leak that has been losing water into the surrounding soil. Over a four to six month absence, even a modest leak can lose tens of thousands of gallons and saturate the soil around the pool equipment and decking, which can cause structural problems.

Look at the equipment pad area for soft or persistently wet ground, which indicates a leak in the pool plumbing circuit. A pool leak detection evaluation uses pressure testing and acoustic equipment to pinpoint whether the loss is in the shell or the plumbing and where the failure is, so it can be repaired before another season passes.

Irrigation and outdoor plumbing damage

Fountain Hills's intense summer sun and heat are hard on outdoor plumbing. Irrigation backflow assemblies, hose bibs, and exposed irrigation lines degrade from UV exposure and heat cycling, and a component that cracks during the summer can leak water for months into a planter bed or under the landscape. On return, check the irrigation backflow assembly for cracks or weeping, inspect hose bibs for drips, and look for unexplained green or persistently damp areas in the landscape that suggest a buried line leak.

If you turned the irrigation off for the summer, the system has been dry through the heat, and the first time you run it after return is when leaks reveal themselves. Run the system and walk the property to check for leaks before assuming it survived the summer intact. The annual backflow test that ADEQ requires is a natural thing to schedule on return, and it confirms the backflow assembly survived the summer and is functioning.

Water heater and standing water

If you turned your water heater off or to a vacation setting before leaving, restarting it on return is the moment to confirm it is still sound. A water heater that has sat unused through the summer may reveal a leak or a failure when brought back to full operation. Check the area around the base of the tank for water or corrosion as you restart it.

More broadly, before you turn the water main back on, it is worth checking the home for any signs of standing water, in the garage, under sink cabinets, near the water heater, and at the base of toilets. If a slow leak developed while the water was off, turning the main back on without checking can rapidly worsen it. Turning the water on slowly and walking the home to listen and look as pressure returns lets you catch a problem before it floods.

None of this needs to be a source of dread. Most vacant Fountain Hills homes come through the summer fine. But the few minutes of checking before you simply turn everything on, and a prompt call if you find any of the warning signs, is what separates a minor repair from a major restoration. If anything you find concerns you, a professional inspection on return gives you a clear picture before the season gets underway.