Real projects. Proven results.

Water Heater & Plumbing Upgrade

A phased capital plumbing project coordinated around individual homeowner schedules at a Phoenix HOA

The Problem

This community’s plumbing and hot water infrastructure was reaching the end of its useful life, the way it does at any aging multi-building property. But this wasn’t an apartment complex with a single management company that could grant access and schedule crews building by building on its own authority. It was an HOA — every unit individually owned, which meant every appointment depended on that specific homeowner being available, informed, and willing to let a crew into their home.

That difference matters more than it sounds like it should. Invoice after invoice from this project notes a visit where a homeowner wasn’t home, wasn’t expecting the crew, or had already had unrelated work done that changed the scope. Coordinating a capital project across an HOA means coordinating with dozens of individual schedules instead of one property manager’s calendar.

The Solution

The project ran in phases over about 14 months, building by building, unit-pair by unit-pair (this property’s units are stacked two per stack, so a single visit would typically cover both the upstairs and downstairs unit together). Each phase included:

• Installing new individual water heaters, with a licensed electrician bringing in dedicated 30-amp circuits for each one
• Running new PEX main lines to laundry rooms and fixtures where old piping was failing
• Replacing shower valves and supply lines throughout the units being addressed

Billing was broken into the same phases as the work — invoiced building by building and unit-pair by unit-pair as each stage completed, rather than as one large lump sum — so the HOA board could approve and budget the project incrementally, matching the pace at which the work (and the homeowner coordination behind it) could actually happen.

The Results

By the time the project wrapped up, the community had modernized roughly 196 units across 14 buildings, for a total investment of about $1.3 million.

The clearest proof of value is what happened to routine plumbing spend afterward. In the years before the project, the property was running $78,000 to $116,000 a year in ongoing plumbing and water heater repairs. Since the project completed, that number has dropped to roughly $16,000-$20,000 a year — the lowest level in the property’s history on record, including years well before the project even started.

Scheduling a capital project around individual homeowners instead of a single manager takes more coordination, more patience, and more flexibility on the vendor’s side. It doesn’t have to mean a worse outcome — this property ended up with a fully modernized water heating and plumbing system, phased in a way the HOA could actually approve and pay for, on a timeline that worked with its residents rather than around them.