Published by your neighbors at Home Watch Sun City West
Del Webb built Sun City West from 1978 into the late 1990s, and many of the homes here have seen forty summers or more. Many have been lovingly updated. Some still have original pieces tucked away in the garage or under a sink. Either way, a house with some history has its own way of telling you when something is wrong, if someone is there to listen.
Hard West Valley water leaves mineral scale in a water heater year after year, and an older tank is the most common source of a slow leak in an empty house. Each time we come by, we look all the way around the base of the tank and the fittings on top, because a drip there in May can be a soaked garage floor by August.
The years Sun City West was built overlap with the era when some builders used plumbing materials that do not age well, including polybutylene supply lines. Many homes here have been replumbed since. If yours has not, or you are not sure, tell us at the walkthrough, and ask a plumber to take a look before you leave.
Older homes speak up in small ways. A faint hiss behind a toilet, a smell of sewer from a guest bath nobody used, a warm spot in a back bedroom where the duct has come loose. None of those would set off an alarm. All of them are the kind of thing we notice on a slow walk through the house.
In Sun City West the garage often holds the golf cart, a second freezer, the water heater, and the softener. It is also where pack rats and scorpions like to settle in. We check it every time, and if you like, we can look after the cart and the car while you are gone.
Tell us when you leave, and we will plan the visits around your summer.
