Plumbers in Arizona

Hard water, hot garages, short-lived water heaters

The first thing an Arizona plumber checks in a home is the water heater, because the odds are it is closer to the end than the owner thinks. Phoenix water comes from the Salt and Verde rivers, the Colorado River by way of the Central Arizona Project canal, and groundwater, and every one of those sources is loaded with dissolved minerals. At 12 to 20 grains per gallon, sediment collects on the bottom of a tank fast enough to rumble within a couple of years. Put that tank in a garage that reaches 120 degrees every summer afternoon and the unit is working against heat from both sides. Six to ten years is a normal lifespan here. Flushing once a year, replacing the anode rod, and softening the water push it toward the twelve to fifteen years the manufacturer had in mind.

The same water scales tankless heat exchangers, crusts faucet aerators, stiffens shower valves and shortens the life of dishwashers and washing machines. Softeners and reverse osmosis systems are common in Arizona for good reason, and our plumbers install, service and repair them along with the fixtures they protect.

Under the slab and inside the walls

Nearly every Valley home built since the 1960s sits on a slab with copper supply lines beneath it. Hard water works on the copper from the inside. Soil works on it from the outside, especially in the East Valley where pockets of clay swell during the monsoon and shrink in the heat. Pinhole leaks open under the floor, and the signs are a warm tile, a water bill that doubled, or running water you can hear but not find. Slab leak detection is everyday work for Arizona plumbers, and the usual fix is to abandon the failed line and reroute through the attic rather than cut the floor.

A generation of homes built from the late 1970s into the mid-1990s adds another problem: polybutylene supply piping. It was cheap and quick to install, and it fails at the fittings without warning. Repiping those homes in PEX is one of the most common larger jobs in the Phoenix metro. Older houses in central Phoenix and Tucson still carry galvanized steel that has rusted nearly shut, and repiping those restores pressure as well as reliability.

Monsoon and freeze, the two shocks

Arizona’s weather delivers two short, sharp tests each year. From mid-June through September, monsoon storms drop intense rain on caliche and hardpan that absorb almost nothing. Water runs to the lowest point, floor drains and cleanouts back up, sewers surcharge, and roof drains that were fine in May overflow in July. Then in December and January the desert produces a handful of nights at or below freezing. Homes here are built with supply lines in exterior walls, hose bibs and irrigation backflow preventers standing exposed, and pool equipment in the open. One hard freeze splits pipes across the metro, and in Tucson, which freezes more often, the wave of leaks is large enough to show up in the city’s water demand figures.

Both are manageable with a little preparation, and our plumbers handle the pre-season checks and the calls that follow when the weather arrives first.

Licensing and permits in Arizona

Arizona licenses plumbing contractors through the Registrar of Contractors, with separate residential, commercial and dual classifications. A license is required for any job over a thousand dollars and for any work that needs a permit, which in most Arizona cities includes water heater replacement, repipes, new fixture locations and drain line changes. The plumbers we dispatch across Arizona hold current ROC licenses and pull the permits the job requires.