Plumbers in Sun Lakes

Every spring, a good share of Sun Lakes locks the door, sets the thermostat high, and heads somewhere cooler. The house then sits empty through a Phoenix summer. If a supply line starts to weep in May, nobody is there to hear the drip, notice the warm spot on the tile, or smell the damp carpet. By October a small leak has had five months to soak into baseboards, cabinets, and flooring.

The pipe raises the stakes. This active-adult community south of Chandler was built mostly from the 1970s through the 1990s, which puts many of its homes in the polybutylene era alongside the copper ones. Polybutylene tends to fail at fittings without much warning, and older copper in hard water develops pinholes. Both start slowly. Both are exactly what an empty house is good at hiding.

Before you leave for the season, shut off the main and set the water heater to vacation mode or turn it off. Ask a neighbor or a home-watch service to look for water on the floor. If your house has gray plastic supply lines, price a repipe while you are here to supervise it. And if a water bill arrives higher than an empty house should produce, book leak detection first and ask questions later. The $14,000 drip explains why the waiting is the expensive part.