i'm an engineer and have lived in the villages for a year and a half now. I'm creating this post to alert homeowners of maintenance tasks here in the villages that are often overlooked.
1) if you have a gas or electric tank hot water heater and it doesn't have an expansion tank you should have one installed. If you have an expansion tank it must be checked at least once a year. This can easily be done by tapping on the outside of the bottom and top of the expansion tank with a metal object like a screwdriver. The bottom half of the expansion tank will have water in it and the top should not. When the tank is good the tapping sound on the bottom and the top sides of the tank will sound different. The bottom will sound like a thud and the top should sound empty. Expansion tanks generally last 5 years if they were pressurized to the water inlet pressure when installed. Because the tanks are pre-pressurized to 40 lbs from the factory some installers never pre-pressurized the tanks properly and they will fail sooner than 5 years in this state. There is also a pressure valve on the top of the tank where you can take a reading each year as well and if the pressure is lower than it should be you can add air. But you must drain the hot water heater after the electric and or gas is turned off, below the expansion tank level before taking a reading and or adding air. This will also drain off any sediment from the bottom of the hot water tank.
The purpose of the expansion tank is to maintain safe water pressure when your hot water heater heats water. Hot water from the heater expands which increases the water pressure in your water system. The expansion tank compensates for this hot water expansion and keeps the water pressure in your home at a safe level.
If you just ignore this maintenance over time a failed expansion tank can cause the water pressure in your home to increase to unsafe levels. Generally, your water pressure should be less than 80lbs here in the villages. When an expansion tank fails, faucets, water valves, water hoses to the toilets, refrigerator, water filters, etc, can fail causing a flood in your home. It can also cause an increase in the pressure in the hot water heater tank causing the expansion safety valve to leak.
These expansion tanks are relatively inexpensive and if you are handy you can test and change them yourself. If not you can call your plumber or hvac company of choice to check it when they service your hot water heater. If you have a nova whole house filter for example, when they come yearly to change the filters they will also check the hot water heater expansion tank as well. If you do it yourself you can check it yourself.
There have been many reports of whole house water filters, softeners and burst hoses failing and flooding the home. It's not the hose or filter's problem, it's because of unsafe water pressure in your home.
2) all home irrigation systems here in the villages had a rain sensor installed when the home was built. What we have found is after 5 years or so the sponges in the rain sensor dry up and the sensor fails to tell the controller not to water when it rained. Becasue of this, probably thousands of residents here in the villages water unnecessarily after a heavy rain or storm wasting and paying for a significant amount of wasted irrigation water. The solution is to replace these sponges or just go to your local big box store and for around $20 purchase and install a new irrigation rain sensor. If you can't do it yourself you can hire one of the many handymen and or irrigation service people here in the villages to do it for you. I believe it's simpler to replace the whole sensor because the plastic parts in the old sensor can break when replacing the sponges. There has been so much talk of rising water costs and this is a relatively easy way to lower yours.
3) the irrigation water we get from the villages south of 466 is "grey" water meaning it's minimally treated and is not pottable meaning you can't drink or cook with it. We have found a lot of sediment in this water which clogs the filters in the irrigation system spray heads eventually leading to them being totally clogged and stop working. One way around this is to have your local irrigation service persion check and change the filters yearly or the option many of us have used is to install an irrigation water filter. These are sediment filters installed before your irrigation valve box outside so that you have nearly sediment-free water feeding your system. It's a relatively inexpensive way to keep your irrigation system running without a lot of maintenance. There is a valve that you open once a month or so to clear the filter and that's it. There are some local handymen who can install this for you.
4) whole house water filters filter the treated water from the villages removing sediment, chlorine and other things that you generally don't want to drink. Although many don't mind the taste of the villages water there is a lot of sediment that will settle in your hot water tank or system, in your pipes, faucets, dishwasher, etc.. Installing a whole house water filter will keep sediment from causing damage over time to everything that uses water in your home. If you have a hot water tank system a whole house water filter will lessen the need to drain the tank to remove water sediment for example. These systems are relatively inexpensive and can be installed by nova filters or you can do it yourself by purchasing the many systems available either through amazon or your local big box store. Just do your research and look into all these options since not all whole house filters are the same or have local service like nova for example.
5) all water supply hoses for the toilets, refrigerators, dishwasher and washing machines have a fixed life and will eventually fail potentially causing a catastrophic flood in your home. The problem we have here in the villages is almost all homes have push/pull valves installed where in some cases you can't replace the water supply hose without changing the valve. This is especially true for the water supply hose for the refrigerator. To manage this problem you can have your local plumber change out all of the push/pull valves for quarter turn ball valves so you can change the water supply hoses every 5 years or so.
I hope this post can be a reference for everyone in the villages since these items are talked about in bits and pieces in many of the talk of the villages threads but not in one spot and they are so important!
I don't provide any of the above services and i have no affiliation with nova filters but i mention this company because many here in the villages have used their products and services. They are locally owned, stand behind their product and workmanship and highly recommended. Even if you are just doing research, give brad a call and he will help you with information for your specific need.
If you have any questions and or need some references to service people and or handymen who can provice some of these services please reach out to me at
jrref@hotmail.com or pm me.