Condo Plumbing: Some Things You Need to Know

Condo Plumbing can be a bit tricky

Condos are often on a shared water system. By shared, we don’t mean just on city water, we mean shared, as in: the pipes run from one unit to the next, or they’re all fed off of one (or more) main valves. Shutting off the service to one unit may mean shutting off the service to all of them in the complex, or to a bunch of them that are in the same building (if the development has multiple buildings).

If you want to do some plumbing work on your own unit, you need to schedule a maintenance period with the HOA (Home Owners Association). The HOA is often managed by an HOA Management Company.

This might take a few days, or it could take a few weeks.

You may be asking: where do they GET this stuff they write about?

Real life, of course.

Here is a real life shared condo plumbing tale of woe.

• Woman buys condo.
• Hall bathroom is UGLY.
• Woman orders new countertop for hall bathroom.
• Counter is delivered and can’t be installed because the water shut-off valves under the sink don’t turn all the way off, which means the faucet on the old counter can’t be removed.
• Woman learns that replacing the shut-off values requires shutting off the water main for 8 units.
• HOA gives permission after checking plumber’s license, notifies residents of 4-hours for a water-off maintenance window.
• Maintenance man shuts off main valve at designated time.
• Plumber and woman wait and wait and wait.
• The plumbing system takes an hour to drain before work can start. Plumber replaces two shut-off valves under the sink.
• HOA maintenance man turns water back on.
• New shut-off valves work properly.
• Woman pays plumber $180 for two hours of work that would have taken 20 minutes for a single-family residence.

And that would be the end of the story . . . except . . .

• When the water is turned back on, some debris (scale) in the hot water pipes of the older plumbing system clog the shower valves in both showers.
• Both showers that used to have full water pressure now have very low water pressure.
• Fixing THAT is going to require another planned maintenance, and the HOA doesn’t want to approve it quickly due to the inconvenience to the other unit owners.

When you live in a development like a condo where some resources are shared, it just takes longer to get some stuff done. More coordination is necessary. More people are going to be in the mix for getting stuff approved, scheduled, and completed.

That doesn’t mean don’t buy one, it just means: know what you’re buying and make sure you’re ok with the trade-offs that condo living brings to your lifestyle.