Most of the repairs we get called out for were visible months earlier, if anyone had looked. The water heater that finally quit had been running loud since spring; the slab leak that soaked a carpet had been nudging the water bill up for three billing cycles. A preventive plumbing maintenance plan is simply the looking — once a year, by a licensed plumber who knows what fails in this city and why.
Why preventive plumbing maintenance matters more here
Water across the region tests between 15 and 20 grains per gallon, which the hardness scale rates as very hard. Every appliance that heats or holds that water accumulates scale. A water heater in Ohio might reach fifteen years; the same unit here often starts failing at eight or nine, because the tank bottom is insulated by mineral sediment that makes the burner work harder for less hot water.
Then add slab construction. Most homes built here from the 1970s onward sit on a concrete slab with supply lines running underneath it. When clay soil swells in a wet spring and shrinks in an August drought, the slab moves and the copper moves with it. A pinhole that opens under a slab does not announce itself with a puddle — it shows up as a warm spot on the floor, a bill that crept up, or the sound of water running with every fixture closed.
The short version: hard water shortens the life of everything that heats water, and slab movement creates leaks you cannot see. Both are gradual, both are cheap to catch early, and both are expensive to catch late.
Plumbing maintenance on a 1960s house is not the same job
The checklist is the same; what it finds is not, and the order we work through it changes with the age of the house.
On a pre-1970 property the attention goes to material. Galvanised supply lines narrowing with rust, cast iron waste that has started to channel, angle stops that have not turned in forty years, and a water heater that may be sitting on a platform built before pans were required. Plumbing maintenance on a house like this is largely about knowing which of those is closest to the end so the replacement is planned rather than discovered at two in the morning.
On a build from the last twenty years the failures are different and more boring: a pressure regulator drifting out of range, a water heater losing its anode early on hard water, an expansion tank that has lost its charge, and irrigation valves weeping into the yard. None of those announce themselves. All of them are cheap while they are still small, which is the entire argument for regular plumbing maintenance on a house that appears to have nothing wrong with it.
What gets checked
Nothing on this list is padding. It is the set of things that, in our experience, either fail or warn you first.
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Water heater
Sediment flush, anode rod condition, thermostat accuracy, T&P valve test and connection corrosion. The anode rod is the one most homeowners have never heard of and the one that decides whether the tank rusts through.
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Whole-home pressure
A static reading at a hose bib. Anything sustained above 80 psi is hard on every fixture and appliance in the house, and it is common here. If it is high we check whether a regulator exists and whether it still works.
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Slab leak indicators
Meter test with everything closed, floor temperature scan along likely runs, and a look at bill history if you have it. A meter that creeps with the house shut off is the clearest early signal there is.
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Drains and traps
Flow rate at each fixture, trap and vent condition, and any pattern of slow drainage that points further down the line rather than at a local clog.
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Shutoffs and supply lines
Angle stops under sinks and toilets, washing machine hoses, and the main shutoff. Old angle stops seize open, which means you cannot isolate a leak without killing water to the whole house.
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Toilets and fixtures
Flapper and fill valve condition, dye test for silent leaks, aerator scale and cartridge wear. A silently leaking toilet can waste more water than the rest of the house combined.
What you get afterwards
A written condition report rather than a verbal “everything looks fine.” Each item is marked good, monitor, or needs attention, with a note on what monitoring actually means in practice and roughly how long you have. If something needs attention you get the cost before any work starts, and you are free to have someone else do it.
The report is worth keeping. If you sell the house, a documented annual plumbing inspection answers questions a buyer’s inspector is going to raise anyway, particularly about water heater age and any slab history.
Before a freeze, and the week after one
San Antonio does not get many hard freezes, and that is precisely the problem: houses here are not built for them and nobody has a routine for them. A freeze visit is the one piece of seasonal plumbing maintenance we would not skip.
Beforehand it is straightforward. Hose bibs isolated and drained, exposed pipe in the attic and the garage insulated, the irrigation backflow preventer wrapped or shut down, and the location of the main shut-off confirmed with whoever is actually going to be in the house. That last one sounds trivial until the night it matters.
Afterwards is the part people miss. A pipe that froze and did not burst has still been stressed, and joints that were pushed apart can weep for weeks before anything shows on a ceiling. Post-freeze plumbing maintenance is a pressure test and a walk of the attic and the exterior runs, and it is how a small repair in February stops being a ceiling replacement in April.
Is it worth it for your house?
Honestly, not for everyone. Here is how we would think about it, and we will give you the same answer on the phone.
| Your situation | Our read |
|---|---|
| Built before 2005, on a slab | Worth it. Supply lines are old enough that slab leaks are a live risk, and early detection is the whole game. |
| Water heater is six years old or more | Worth it. Annual flushing meaningfully extends tank life in water this hard, and you get warning before a failure floods a garage. |
| No water softener fitted | Worth it. Untreated water at 15 to 20 grains is doing steady damage to every heated fixture in the house. |
| New build under five years, softener installed | Probably not yet. Come back when the water heater hits year five. |
| A rental or a property you do not live in | Worth it. Tenants report failures, not warnings, and by then it is a repair. |
What a plan costs
- Property size and fixture countA three-bedroom single-storey and a five-bathroom two-storey are different visits. We price on what is actually there.
- How many propertiesLandlords and multi-property owners are quoted per property, and the rate improves with volume.
- What the plumbing maintenance visit turns upThe inspection price is fixed. Anything found is quoted separately, and nothing gets done without your approval.
- Repairs you go ahead withPlan members get the diagnostic fee credited against work done on the same visit rather than paying twice for the same trip.
Ask for the figure when you call. We would rather quote your actual house than publish a number that only fits half of them.
Rental property, second homes and anything you are not standing in
The case for plumbing maintenance gets stronger the less often somebody is in the building. A leak in a house you live in is noticed in minutes. The same leak in a rental is noticed when a tenant decides it is worth mentioning, and in a property that sits empty between bookings it is noticed by whoever opens the door next.
For landlords the value is mostly in the record. A dated report on each address, with what was checked and what was flagged, is what settles a dispute about who caused what and what supports a claim when one is needed. It also spreads the spend: plumbing maintenance across a portfolio is a predictable annual number, where emergency call-outs are not.
For second homes and short-term lets the priority shifts to the things that fail while nobody is watching — supply lines to washing machines and toilets, water heater relief valves, and any fixture that sits unused long enough for seals to dry out. We set the plumbing maintenance visit to land before the season starts rather than on a calendar date.
What preventative plumbing maintenance actually catches
A maintenance visit is diagnostic, not a repair contract. Common outcomes are water heater service or replacement, a softener installation when scale is clearly the root problem, or leak detection when the meter test comes back positive. If something urgent turns up — an actively leaking supply line, a failed T&P valve — we can usually deal with it the same day rather than making you book again.
What plumbing maintenance will not do
It is worth being straight about the limits, because the version of this sold with a knock at the door usually is not.
An annual visit does not guarantee nothing will fail. A slab leak can begin the week after a plumbing maintenance inspection that found nothing, and no test detects a pinhole that has not started yet. What plumbing maintenance does is shift the odds and shorten the list of surprises: the things that fail slowly get caught while they are slow, and the things that fail suddenly are at least on a known, documented system with a working shut-off.
It also is not a substitute for replacing something that is finished. If your water heater is thirteen years old, plumbing maintenance will keep it going and tell you honestly where it stands, but it will not make it new. Anyone selling you a plan on the premise that nothing will ever need replacing again is selling you something else.
How the year tends to run
- Book the plumbing maintenance visit. Autumn suits most homes, before the first cold snap finds anything.
- We inspect, test and flush, and show you anything on the list that is moving in the wrong direction.
- You get the written report the same day, with each item marked good, monitor or needs attention.
- Anything urgent we can handle there and then; anything that can wait, waits with a date on it.
What the plumbing maintenance plan covers between visits
The annual plumbing maintenance inspection is the visible part. The rest of what a plumbing maintenance plan buys is what happens on the days you actually call.
Plan customers go ahead of the queue on the same day they call, and there is no after-hours premium on the rate — the two things that cost the most on a bad night are the two things the plumbing maintenance plan removes. Repairs booked under the plumbing maintenance plan carry a discount on labour, and because we already hold the report on your house, whoever arrives knows what is in it before the van door opens.
There is no lock-in. The plumbing maintenance plan runs year to year and you can stop it at the end of any term, which is the only fair way to sell something whose value is supposed to be self-evident by the second visit.
Plumbing maintenance across San Antonio and the Hill Country
We run plumbing maintenance visits across San Antonio and out to Helotes, Boerne, Bulverde, Schertz, Converse, Stone Oak and Somerset. Water chemistry does not change much across that spread — it is hard everywhere on the Edwards Aquifer — but what a house is made of changes a great deal between a 1950s bungalow inside the Loop and a 2018 build off 1604, and the plumbing maintenance is set up accordingly.
Properties on private wells get a different visit again, because the pressure tank, the pump controls and the treatment equipment all come into it. Say so when you book and we will allow the time for it.
Work is carried out by licensed plumbers under our Responsible Master Plumber, license RMP-43333, issued by the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. You can verify that license yourself.
What San Antonio homeowners say
Reviews pulled live from our Google Business Profile, not retyped here.
Questions homeowners ask us
How often should a San Antonio home have a plumbing inspection?
Once a year suits most homes here. That matches the water heater flush interval, which is the single most valuable item on the list given local hardness. Homes over thirty years old, or with a known slab history, sometimes justify every six months.
What does the plumbing maintenance plan include?
A full inspection of the water heater, whole-home pressure, slab leak indicators, drains, shutoff valves and fixtures, followed by a written condition report. Repairs are quoted separately and never carried out without your approval.
Can a plumbing maintenance inspection actually find a slab leak?
It can find strong evidence of one. A meter test with every fixture closed will show movement if water is escaping anywhere in the system, and that is usually the first hard confirmation. Pinpointing the exact location under the slab is a separate step using acoustic and thermal equipment.
Does flushing a water heater really extend its life?
In water this hard, measurably. Sediment settles on the tank bottom and insulates the burner from the water, which raises the temperature the steel itself has to tolerate. Removing that layer once a year is the difference between a tank that makes its rated life and one that does not.
What water pressure is too high?
Anything sustained above 80 psi. High pressure shortens the life of water heaters, washing machine hoses, toilet fill valves and faucet cartridges, and it is a common finding in parts of San Antonio. The fix is a pressure reducing valve, which is a straightforward install.
Do I need this if my house is new?
Not immediately. A home under five years old with a working softener has very little to find. The useful starting point is when the water heater reaches year five, or sooner if there is no softener.
Will you try to sell me repairs during the plumbing maintenance visit?
We will tell you what we found and what it costs to fix, and that is the end of our part. The report marks items good, monitor or needs attention, and plenty of visits end with nothing in the third column. You are free to take the report to another plumber.
Do you cover homes outside San Antonio proper?
Yes. We work from our Helotes base across Stone Oak, Boerne, Bulverde, Schertz, Helotes and Somerset.
Is a plumbing maintenance plan worth it on a newer house?
Usually yes, for different reasons than on an old one. New builds fail at the regulator, the expansion tank and the water heater anode rather than at the pipe, and all three are cheap to correct and invisible until they are not. It also establishes a baseline, so year two has something to compare against.
What happens if you find something during the plumbing maintenance visit?
You get told what it is, what it will cost and how urgent it actually is — including when the honest answer is that it can wait a year. Nothing gets done on the day beyond the plumbing maintenance itself without you agreeing to it first.
Do I have to be home?
For the full check, yes, or somebody does — we need access to the attic, the water heater, under the sinks and the exterior. For a freeze-prep visit, outdoor access is usually enough, and we will tell you when we book which kind of visit it is.
The cheapest repair is the one you catch early.
Ninety minutes, a written report, and an honest answer about whether your house needs this yet. Some years the right answer is not yet — we will say so.
Silverback Plumbing & Drain provides licensed plumbing and drain service for homes and businesses throughout the San Antonio area. From emergency repairs to routine maintenance, we diagnose the problem, explain the fix, and get it done right the first time.
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Copyright © 2026 Silverback Plumbing and Drain
Mark Vargas, Responsible Master Plumber #43333 Licensed through the Texas Board of Plumbing Examiners P.O. Box 4200, Austin, Texas 78765 (800-845-6584)