Plumbers in Aubrey, Texas

What to check in the first year

None of this requires tools, and all of it is easier to get fixed while somebody else is paying.

Run every fixture and watch it fully. Every tap, shower, toilet and tub, including the ones in rooms nobody uses. Watch each toilet refill and stop, and watch each drain empty rather than just hearing it.

Look under every sink with a torch. Slip joints assembled at an angle are the most common new build plumbing fault, and they weep slowly enough that the first sign is a damp cabinet base months later.

Check the water heater installation, not just that it works. A pan with a piped drain, the relief discharge routed correctly, an expansion tank where the system is closed, and accessible shutoffs. Those are the items most often left incomplete.

Measure the pressure. New subdivisions frequently sit on high street pressure, and a house handed over without a regulator, or with one set too high, will start producing small failures in year two.

Test the hose bibs and the irrigation connection. Outdoor taps, their vacuum breakers and the backflow device on any sprinkler system are routinely the least finished part of a new house.

Find the shutoffs and confirm they work. A valve that has never been turned since installation is a valve nobody has confirmed. Finding a seized main shutoff during the warranty period is a free repair.

Check the exterior grade and where downpipes discharge. On a new lot, roof water dumped against the foundation is the fastest way to move a young slab, and slab movement is what breaks under slab drainage. It is landscaping that becomes a plumbing bill.

The shortcuts that fast construction produces

These are not conspiracies, they are what happens when trades work quickly in sequence.

Air admittance valves used instead of proper venting. A mechanical vent under a sink is legitimate in specific situations and is frequently used as a substitute for running a real vent. The symptom is gurgling drains and occasional odour.

Missing sediment traps and appliance shutoffs. Gas appliances without the required trap, or fixtures with no isolation valve, are quick omissions that cost you at the first service.

Pipe supports and protection left out. Lines that knock when a valve closes, or pipe run through a plate without a protection plate, are both support failures and both are warranty items.

Drains with marginal fall. A branch run a little too flat drains slowly and blocks repeatedly, and it looks fine on the day the house is handed over. Repeat blockages in a new house are a construction defect, not a habit.

Debris left in the system. Construction debris in supply lines fouls cartridges and aerators, and it shows up as a weak or gritty fixture in the first months.

Trap arms and tail pieces left loose. Fixtures connected at the last minute, sometimes after final inspection, are the ones that weep.

Ask whether the under slab drainage was tested. A hydrostatic test before the pour is routine on a well run site and skipped on a rushed one, and a defect under a new slab is the most expensive thing on this page. The records exist if the test happened.

Using the warranty, and documenting the house

Warranties are honoured on evidence and within deadlines, so both matter.

Know your dates. Most builder warranties cover workmanship for a defined initial period with longer cover on structural items. Find those dates and put a reminder a month before each expires.

Report in writing, always. A phone call to a site office is not a record. An email describing the fault, with a photograph and the date, is what gets honoured and what survives staff changes.

Get an independent opinion before the deadline. An hour of a plumber's time, spent walking a house that is eleven months old, routinely finds items worth many times the visit. That is the single best value inspection available on a new house.

Ask for what is behind the walls. Rough in photographs and any as built information from the builder are worth requesting while they still exist, and they are genuinely useful for the whole time you own the house.

Keep a folder. Model and serial numbers for the heater and fixtures, the inspection records, the warranty documents and your own photographs. It makes every future repair faster.

Do not let a repeat problem be closed as fixed. A drain cleared twice under warranty is a defect that has not been diagnosed. Ask for the cause, in writing, rather than another clearing.

How a call plays out

The phone is answered around the clock, holidays included. Tell us how old the house is and whether you are still inside the builder warranty, because that changes our advice rather than just the timing. If a problem has been repaired once already, mention that too.

Aubrey and this part of Denton County are on our daily route, with overnight dispatch. We will walk a new house before the warranty expires and give you a written list you can send to the builder, and we will say plainly when something is their obligation rather than your expense.