Age-restricted community · Goodyear
PebbleCreek leak detection and repair
Established in 1993 and still adding homes, PebbleCreek combines the two things that make a leak expensive: supply lines coming up on three decades old, and houses nobody is standing in for months at a time.
PebbleCreek is an age-restricted master-planned community in Goodyear, established in 1993 and still building, which means its oldest homes are on 1990s copper while its newest are on PEX, under one association and one set of gates.
An age-restricted community has a plumbing profile that nothing else shares, and it has nothing to do with the residents. It is about occupancy. A large share of these houses are shut up and left for part of the year, and a leak in an empty house runs until someone comes back and opens the door.
Layer on top of that a community established in 1993 that is still selling new homes, and you get a wide spread of pipe under one gate: copper on the earliest villas, PEX on the newest, and everything in between on streets that look identical from the kerb.
What is under the slab in PebbleCreek?
It depends on which decade the home belongs to, because the community has been building since 1993. The earliest homes are generally on copper; homes from the 2000s onward are generally on PEX or CPVC.
Copper of the 1990s is the material worth understanding here. It rarely splits open. It develops pinholes, usually where the pipe was bent during installation or where it rubs something in the slab, and a pinhole passes water so slowly that a household in residence might notice nothing for a year. In a house standing empty, that same pinhole has nobody to notice it at all.
Related: slab leak detection and whole-home repiping.
| What we go on | In PebbleCreek |
|---|---|
| Build window | 1993 onward, still building |
| City or jurisdiction | Goodyear, Arizona |
| Likely supply material | 1990s copper on the earliest villas, CPVC and PEX on everything built since |
| What tends to fail first | pinholes in the older copper, and hose-bib and softener-loop connections outdoors |
| What we check first | a meter test with the house completely still, which is the one test an empty house makes easy |
Is PebbleCreek older or newer than the rest of Goodyear?
PebbleCreek is older than Goodyear as a whole at one end and newer at the other, because it has been building since 1993 while the city’s big growth came after 2000.
Goodyear’s Census profile puts PebbleCreek on the older side of the city. The American Community Survey gives the city a median year of construction of 2007, fourteen years after PebbleCreek was established, with most of Goodyear built since 2000.
| Housing across Goodyear city, Arizona | Share |
|---|---|
| Median year built | 2007 |
| Built before 1980 | 4 percent |
| Built since 2000 | 78 percent |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2023). Geography: Census place.
What happens to a leak in a house nobody is living in?
It keeps running, and that is the whole risk. A slab leak in an occupied house announces itself with a warm floor, a running sound or a bill; in a closed-up house there is nobody to hear it, and the water goes into the ground under the slab for as long as it takes.
So the useful habit is a check before you leave and a check when you get back, plus someone local who can look at the meter now and then. If the dial is turning in an empty house, something is using water, and there is nothing else it can be.
Related: vacant and seasonal home checks and reading an unexplained bill.
Asked and answered
What do people in PebbleCreek ask us?
What pipe is in a PebbleCreek home?
It depends on the decade. PebbleCreek was established in 1993 and is still building, so the earliest homes are generally on copper supply lines and those from the 2000s onward are generally on PEX or CPVC. The 1990s copper is the part worth watching, because it tends to fail at pinholes rather than splitting, and a pinhole can run for a year without being noticed.
We are away for the summer. What should we do about leaks before we go?
Take a meter reading with everything in the house switched off, write it down, and either close the main behind you or arrange for somebody to read the meter while you are gone. A closed-up house is the easiest house to test, because nothing else is drawing water, so any movement on the dial means water is escaping somewhere on your side of the meter.
Our community pool seems to be losing water. Is that a leak or evaporation?
A large pool in a Phoenix summer genuinely loses a real amount of water to evaporation, so the two have to be separated before anyone assumes a leak. The standard way is a bucket comparison: a bucket of pool water set on a step loses water to the same air as the pool does, so if the pool drops faster than the bucket over the same period, the difference is going somewhere else.
Something using water in PebbleCreek?
A photo of the meter face, the wet area or the equipment pad is usually enough for us to say what is likely going on.
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What customers in the Phoenix valley have written. The words are theirs, on listings we cannot edit.
“Humberto has been amazing! Prompt, professional, and patient. He has gone above and beyond, taking the time to show me how to operate the water valves and educating me so I can continue to monitor for future leaks. He identified multiple leaks and made thoughtful recommendations.”
“Beto was very professional, thorough and patient in explaining everything he was doing and why. It was an excellent and well worth it experience, and this is saying something for an architect who had a hundred questions!”
“The owner and operator of this company is everything a contractor should be. On time, honest, competent, reachable, comprehensive. Hope to work with him again in the future.”