Oro Valley Water Damage Restoration

Second homes and empty properties are where damage runs longest.

The Oro Valley pattern

Oro Valley has a significant number of properties that are not occupied year-round. Some are second homes, some are let seasonally, some sit empty while owners are away for months at a time. Nothing about the plumbing is unusual; what is unusual is how long a failure can run before anybody walks in.

A supply line that fails in an occupied house is noticed in minutes. The same failure in an empty house can run for weeks. The damage is then not really a water problem any more, it is a mould and structural problem, and the work needed changes accordingly.

Oro Valley is an incorporated town with its own government. If a property is unoccupied for long stretches, isolating the water supply at the stop tap when leaving is the single most effective thing an owner can do.

What helps on the first call

• Roughly how long the property has been unoccupied.
• When water was last known to be running normally.
• Whether there is any smell of damp, which suggests it has been going a while.

How an Oro Valley job usually runs

• Establishing how long the water has been running, since that drives everything else.
• Assessing whether materials can be dried or have gone too far to save.
• Checking for mould growth, which is likely after more than a couple of days.
• Drying and, where needed, removing material that cannot be brought back.

Leaving a property empty for a season

The most effective thing an owner of an unoccupied Oro Valley property can do costs nothing: turn the water off at the stop tap before leaving. A supply failure cannot flood a house that has no supply reaching it.

Where that is not practical, the next best options are a neighbour or manager checking inside periodically, and knowing where the stop tap actually is before it is needed. A leak found in week one is a repair. The same leak found in week twelve is a rebuild.

Serving Tucson, AZ and surrounding areas. Call (520) 214-7571, 8am to 9pm, seven days.

For the wider picture, see our Tucson water damage restoration overview.