Plumbing Maintenance Plans in Phoenix & Scottsdale, priced before we start.
“It’s been fine for years.” Some version of that sentence opens most of the expensive calls we go on. The water heater had been fine for years, right up to the morning it wasn’t. The toilet had been running a little since 2019. The main valve had been fine too, as far as anyone knew, because nobody had turned it since the house was built.
Plumbing in the Valley fails slowly and then all at once, and the slow part is visible to anyone who knows where to look. Hard water leaves scale in heaters and valve seats. Summer bakes whatever lives in a 130°F garage or attic. City pressure can run higher than fixtures like, and a regulator that has failed quietly lets it through. An annual inspection is a scheduled look at the slow part, before it turns into the other part.
Here is what the visit covers. Static pressure, read on a gauge at a hose bib; code calls for a pressure-reducing valve once it climbs past 80 PSI. The water heater: sediment flushed, relief valve inspected, venting and burner checked on gas units, the anode looked at where it can be reached. The main shutoff and fixture stops, turned so they don’t seize. Toilets dye-tested for silent leaks. Supply hoses, traps, the disposal, hose bibs, and visible pipe in the garage and attic. And the meter, watched with every fixture off, for leaks nobody can hear.
Some houses need a few more lines on the checklist. If your city requires an annual backflow test, we note when it is due. If the supply pipe turns out to be polybutylene or old galvanized, we say so plainly, show you, and point you to the repipe math instead of a sales pitch.
Everything is photographed and written up, and each item lands in one of three columns: fixed on the spot, worth doing soon, or fine to leave. The third column is usually the longest. Our technicians aren’t paid on commission, which is why that column exists at all. The industry’s “free inspection” that happens to find five figures of urgent work is a sales call carrying a flashlight. This is an inspection.
Due for a visit if any of these sound familiar
Nobody has looked at the water heater since it went in
Sediment builds fastest in hard water, and a tank that has never been flushed may be past the point where flushing helps. What the heater’s noises mean is a good place to start.
The main valve hasn’t moved in years
Valves that sit untouched collect scale and seize. Most people learn this during the emergency, which is the worst possible time to learn anything.
Pipes bang when a valve snaps shut
Water hammer often means pressure is too high or a regulator has failed. Both are cheap to confirm with a gauge and costly to ignore, since high pressure shortens the life of every hose, valve and appliance downstream.
Is a toilet refilling itself at night?
A flapper leaking into the bowl wastes water without a sound worth noticing. A few drops of food coloring in the tank, no flushing for 15 minutes, and color in the bowl gives you the answer.
White crust on faucets and showerheads
That is scale, and what shows on the outside is building inside valves and the water heater too. The hard water cost calculator puts a yearly figure on it for your house.
You just bought the place
The home inspection report said “plumbing functional,” which can be true of a house with a slab leak and a failing heater. A plumber’s inspection looks at age, material and pressure, not only whether water comes out.
What the annual visit looks like
- 01
Your list comes first
A few minutes on what you have noticed: the slow drain, the noise at night, the bill that jumped. Those complaints decide where the extra time goes.
- 02
Gauge, meter, valves
Pressure is measured, the meter is watched for movement with everything off, and every shutoff within reach is exercised and checked for weeping stems.
- 03
The water heater gets the longest look
Flushed, relief valve checked, gas connection leak-tested, expansion tank checked where there is one. If the heater is near the end, you hear it with a year’s notice instead of a morning’s, and replacement becomes a choice rather than an emergency.
- 04
A report in plain words
Photographs and a list sorted into now, soon and never mind. Anything we can fix during the visit gets a flat price first, and nothing is touched without your yes.
What it costs
Quoted flat, before we start
The size of the house and the equipment in it move the price: one water heater or two, a softener, a recirculation pump, an older system with more to look at. Ask for the current plan terms when you book. We would rather quote them to you directly than print a list here that goes out of date.
Financing is available on larger jobsMost plumbing disasters are slow ones that nobody was watching. This is the watching.
Maintenance Plans: questions we get asked
Straight answers, the same ones we give on the phone.
