Irrigation Leak Detection in Sun City, Arizona

Leak hunting in Sun City has a resource many places lack: the water district's tariff commits it to helping customers with high use. EPCOR's Sun City Water District can confirm that water is being lost. Finding where it leaves the irrigation system, often on a lot that shares a wall with a neighbour, is the part a leak detection visit adds.

What EPCOR does, and where its help stops

Under the high water use notification practice, EPCOR tracks usage and contacts customers whose consumption looks excessive for that billing period and time of year, listing leaking irrigation valves or heads and sprinklers watering the house, sidewalk or street among the usual causes. Under the inquiry resolution practice, high-use calls go to staff trained on typical causes, and a field technician is sent, on request or when EPCOR thinks it warranted, to verify consumption and carry out a leak detection inspection. The residential audit practice adds a self-audit kit and a meter accuracy check on request, for which meter testing fees apply. None of that replaces a trace along the owner's own pipe, valves and heads. The high water use notice guide explains what to do when the notice arrives.

Duplexes, patio homes and shared walls

Sun City is not only detached homes. The local history museum describes the 1969 model homes north of Grand Avenue as single-family homes, Garden Court apartments, duplexes and patio homes across Del Webb Boulevard, and notes that the 72 original patio homes share walls but have no association of their own because they have no common grounds. On a shared-wall lot, an irrigation leak is rarely one owner's problem for long. Water from a cracked lateral beside a party wall can show up on the neighbour's side, under their slab edge or in their gravel, and the wet spot may be on the wrong side of the wall for the person paying the bill. Before anyone digs, establish whose meter is turning and whose system runs when the water appears, and talk to the neighbour, since with no association there is nobody else to arrange access.

Start with the meter and the timing

EPCOR's free audit kit includes a meter flow bag and a drip gauge; the request needs the name, address, phone number and EPCOR account number. With every indoor fixture off and the controller idle, a meter that still moves says water is going somewhere; running one station at a time then shows which part of the yard is responsible. EPA WaterSense treats pooling between cycles as a sign of an underground leak and valves that cannot shut as the source of water that keeps seeping after a cycle. Water that appears only while a station runs points to that lateral; water that keeps coming with the controller off points to the mainline or a valve. The meter check guide sets out the reading in steps. Once the leak is found, the repair usually belongs to pipe and mainline repair in Sun City or valve and solenoid repair in Sun City. The general method is on the leak detection service page, and every service is listed on the Sun City hub.