Property management
Leak detection for property managers
A portfolio rather than a building. Triaging water loss across scattered addresses, with tenants to let in and owners to get approval from.
What the job actually is
The detection is the short part
On their own house an owner makes one call and stands in the driveway while it gets sorted out. Across a managed portfolio the same leak is a different job. The tenant has to be told, the owner has to approve, the vendor has to be let in, and the file has to show why — on top of everything else due that week.
So what makes this work is not the equipment. It is that whoever turns up already knows which door, who to call when nobody answers, and what the report has to contain before it is any use to you.
Where managed property concentrates
Rental density is not spread evenly across the Valley. Census figures put owner occupancy at about 42 percent of occupied homes in Tempe, about 44 percent in the ZCTA5 85007 area north-west of downtown Phoenix, and about 52 percent in Tolleson. Tempe is also unusual for how little of its housing is single-family — about 39 percent of its units — which is why a portfolio there is often a mix of scattered houses and small multi-family buildings rather than one or the other.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2023)
Method
Triage across a portfolio
Several addresses, different evidence, one week. This is about sorting rather than about detection equipment.
Sort by evidence, not by the order the calls came in
A meter you can read is stronger evidence than a description over the phone, and putting those first stops a week going on the loudest address.
Separate the certain from the possible
A meter still turning with every fixture shut is certain; a consumption figure that looks high is possible, and those deserve different amounts of your week.
Cluster the certain ones geographically
Several addresses in one part of the Valley on one visit is the difference between an afternoon and a week of driving.
Give the possibles something the tenant can do
A meter read with the house quiet, or a bucket test at a rental with a pool, needs nobody dispatched and turns a vague complaint into a number.
Put the vacants first when you have the choice
Nothing legitimate runs in an empty house, so anything moving is a leak — no notice, no access problem, no appointment window.
Keep one thread per property
So your file, the owner's email and our locate still agree months later.
On site
Access is what causes the second visit
Nothing sends a vendor back out more often than a door nobody answered. What removes most of it: a window rather than a time, written permission to work the exterior and the meter without the tenant present, the gate code, and a note about dogs.
Where the tenant is home we explain what we are doing, in English or Spanish, and we do not discuss the owner's business with them.
The approval
What an owner needs before they say yes
An owner reading an email in another state is being asked to authorise work on something they cannot see. What makes that a quick yes is specific, and it is not adjectives:
- which property, by address
- what was measured, and what the reading was
- what was ruled out, and how — the sections tested that held
- where the leak is, marked and photographed before anything was opened
- what failed, in one plain sentence, and what putting it right affects while it happens
That is also the document a carrier will want if water reached finishes.
Repair, and where our scope stops
We locate and repair the leak — slab lines, buried supply, water mains, irrigation, pools and spas. We are not a general plumbing contractor: sewer and drains, gas, water heaters, fixtures and backflow assemblies are not our work, and on those we will tell you what you are dealing with so the right trade goes out.
The expensive ones
Move-outs, vacancies and the seasonal owner
The leaks that do the most damage in a managed portfolio are nearly always in a house nobody is living in: nobody hears a slab line, the irrigation runs on a controller regardless, and a pool autofill keeps the level perfect until the equipment pad runs dry.
Two habits catch most of it, and neither needs us. Read the meter at the move-out walk-through and again before the new tenant takes possession — two readings with nothing in between is the simplest leak detector there is — and read anything standing empty through a Phoenix summer monthly. Where a sale is involved, see how we work with realtors and escrow.
What we get called out for across a portfolio
Where we work
Where we cover for managed portfolios
Scattered single-family rentals and small multi-family across the Valley.
Straight answers
What property managers ask
Can we hand you a list of addresses instead of one work order at a time?
Please do. A list lets us group by part of the Valley and by what evidence each address has, which is how several get covered in an afternoon rather than across a week.
Our tenant will not be home. Can you still do anything useful?
Usually a lot. Meter readings, exterior listening, the irrigation, the hose bibs and a pool can all be worked without going inside, given written permission and the gate code.
The owner wants to know it is real before authorising anything. What do you send?
The address, the reading taken, the sections tested that held, the located leak marked and photographed, and one plain sentence about what failed.
Do you do the repair, or do we bring a plumber in afterwards?
We repair what we locate: slab lines, buried supply lines, water mains, irrigation, pools and spas. Sewer and drains, gas, water heaters, fixtures and backflow assemblies go to your regular plumber, and we will say clearly which of the two you have.
Send the list, not the addresses one at a time
Photos of the meters, a line about each property and what the tenant has reported is enough for us to sort them into what is certain and what needs a reading first.