Plumbing answers for Aubrey & Denton County homes.

A tank water heater in North Texas usually lasts 8 to 12 years. Hard water, attic heat and high water pressure all shorten that, and a heater that is flushed and has its anode rod checked will generally outlast one that is never touched.

You can find the age on the rating plate on the side of the tank; the manufacture date is printed there or coded into the serial number. If the heater is over ten years old and sits in an attic or above a finished room, it is sensible to plan the replacement instead of waiting for the ceiling to tell you.

An attic water heater should sit in a metal drain pan with its own drain line running outside, and you should know where its cold-water shut-off valve is. When an attic tank leaks, the pan and that drain line are the only things between the water and your ceiling.

Look in the pan a few times a year. Any water in it, rust on the bottom of the tank or a drip from a pipe you have never noticed before outside the house (often a small line that ends above a window or near the eave) is a reason to call. A leak alarm in the pan is inexpensive and worth having.

Replacing an attic heater takes more care than a garage one: the old tank has to come down the attic ladder full of sediment, and the new one has to go up. Hymns Plumbing replaces attic and upstairs heaters regularly and covers floors and stairs while doing it.

Replace it if the tank itself is leaking; a leaking tank cannot be repaired. Repair is usually worth it when the heater is under about eight years old and the fault is a part: a heating element, thermostat, igniter, relief valve or a leaking connection on top.

Between eight and twelve years the answer depends on condition and location. A repair that costs a large share of a new heater, on a tank that sits over a living room ceiling, is rarely money well spent. A good plumber will give you both numbers and let you decide.

A tankless water heater is worth it for many North Texas homes, mainly for endless hot water, the space it frees and a service life that can reach twenty years. It costs more to install than a tank, and it needs maintenance that a tank does not.

Three things decide whether it suits your house. The gas line has to be large enough, because a tankless unit burns far more gas at once than a tank. It needs its own venting. And in hard water it has to be descaled, usually once a year, or the heat exchanger chokes with scale. Homes with a softener have a much easier time with tankless heaters.

Tankless water heaters froze in February 2021 because their built-in freeze protection runs on electricity, and the power was out. Small electric heaters inside the unit keep the heat exchanger above freezing, but only while the unit has power, and they do not protect the water pipes leading to it.

Many North Texas tankless heaters are mounted on an outside wall, which makes them the most exposed plumbing on the house. If a hard freeze and a power cut arrive together, the safe course is to shut off the water to the unit and drain it using the manufacturer’s instructions. Ask your plumber to show you the drain valves before winter, and to insulate the exposed pipes beneath the unit.

A dripping temperature and pressure relief valve means either the valve is worn or it is doing its job because pressure in the tank is too high. Never cap or plug the valve or its discharge pipe. It is the safety device that stops a water heater from bursting.

The usual cause in newer homes is thermal expansion. Water expands when heated, and if the house has a pressure-reducing valve or a check valve at the meter, that extra volume has nowhere to go. An expansion tank on the cold line absorbs it. Have a plumber check the house pressure and the expansion tank before simply replacing the valve.

In most North Texas cities, yes. Denton, Frisco, Little Elm and most neighboring towns require a plumbing permit and an inspection for a water heater replacement, and the licensed plumber doing the work normally obtains it.

The inspection is there for good reasons: it checks the gas connection, the vent, the relief valve line, the drain pan and the expansion tank. Rules differ in unincorporated areas and in some utility districts, so ask your plumber what applies at your address.

A popping or rumbling water heater has a layer of mineral sediment on the bottom of the tank. Water trapped under the sediment boils and bubbles up through it, and that is the noise you hear.

It is common with hard water. Sediment makes the heater less efficient and overheats the bottom of the tank, which shortens its life. Flushing can help if it is done regularly from early in the heater’s life. On an old tank that has never been flushed, the drain valve may clog or fail to close again, so let a plumber judge whether it is worth doing.

The common signs of a slab leak are a water bill that rises for no reason, the sound of water running when everything is off, a warm spot on the floor, damp carpet or baseboards, and a water meter that keeps moving with every tap closed.

A slab leak is a leak in a water line that runs beneath the concrete foundation. A warm floor points to a hot-water line. Cracks in tile or a musty smell can come later. Because the pipe is out of sight, the water meter is the best early warning you have.

Slab leaks are common in North Texas because most homes are built on concrete slabs over expansive clay. The clay swells when wet and shrinks when dry, the slab moves with it, and the pipes underneath are flexed and rubbed year after year.

The clay is heaviest in the blackland prairie toward Prosper, Celina and Frisco, with sandier soil in pockets around Aubrey and Pilot Point. Copper lines laid under slabs in homes from the 1970s through the 1990s are the usual victims. Newer homes are piped in PEX, often overhead, which is far less prone to it.

Turn off every tap and water-using appliance, then look at your water meter. If the small leak indicator on the dial is turning, or the reading changes over thirty minutes with no water in use, there is a leak somewhere on your side of the meter.

Start with the toilets, which are the most common cause: put a few drops of food coloring in the tank and wait fifteen minutes without flushing. Color in the bowl means the flapper is leaking. If the toilets pass, check the irrigation system, the water heater and softener, and then call a plumber.

There are three main ways to repair a slab leak: open the slab and repair the pipe at the leak, tunnel under the foundation from outside, or abandon the leaking line and run a new one through the walls or attic.

The right choice depends on where the leak is, how old the pipe is and what is on the floor above it. One leak in an otherwise sound line may justify a spot repair. Several leaks in old copper usually mean the line is finished, and a reroute is the better use of money. Many newer slabs here are post-tensioned, with steel cables under high tension inside the concrete, so cutting into one is never done casually.

Many foundation engineers in North Texas recommend keeping the soil around a slab evenly moist in a dry summer, usually with soaker hoses or drip lines set a foot or so from the foundation. Even moisture means less soil movement, and less movement is easier on the pipes under the house.

The aim is consistency, not saturation. Follow your city or utility district’s watering schedule, keep gutters and drainage carrying rainwater away from the house, and fix irrigation or plumbing leaks near the foundation promptly, because a leak on one side of a slab creates exactly the uneven moisture you are trying to avoid.

In most North Texas homes the main shut-off is in a small covered box in the ground, in the front yard or flower bed, in line between the water meter and the house. Many newer homes also have a shut-off valve in the garage wall or beside the water heater. The meter box near the street has a valve as well.

Find yours before you need it, check that the handle turns, and make sure everyone in the house knows where it is. Use it whenever a pipe bursts, a water heater leaks or a fixture will not stop running. If the only working valve is at the meter, a meter key from a hardware store will turn it.

Household water pressure should be between about 50 and 70 psi, and plumbing codes set the limit at 80 psi. Above that, a pressure-reducing valve is required on the main line.

High pressure wears out faucet cartridges, toilet fill valves, washing machine hoses and water heaters, and it turns a small weakness in a pipe into a leak. A simple gauge that screws onto an outdoor faucet will show your pressure. Pressure-reducing valves wear out too, typically after ten to fifteen years, so banging pipes or a dripping relief valve in a house that used to be quiet is worth a check.

Tap water in Aubrey and northern Denton County is generally moderately hard to hard, and the exact figure depends on who supplies your address and the time of year. Water is called hard above about 7 grains per gallon (120 mg/L).

Most of the area drinks treated lake water supplied by a city or a utility district. Your supplier publishes its hardness in an annual water quality report, sometimes called a Consumer Confidence Report. Homes on private wells, which are common on acreage around Aubrey and Pilot Point, can be harder still and should be tested individually.

For most North Texas homes a water softener is worth it if scale is a visible problem: white crust on faucets and shower glass, a rumbling water heater, stiff laundry or appliances that fail early. It is the only practical way to remove hardness from the whole house.

A softener protects the water heater, the dishwasher, faucet cartridges and, above all, a tankless water heater. The costs are salt, a little water for regeneration and a small amount of added sodium in the water. Some people prefer to keep one kitchen tap unsoftened or add a drinking-water filter.

A water softener removes hardness minerals. A carbon filter removes chlorine, taste and odor. Reverse osmosis removes most dissolved solids from drinking water at one tap. They do different jobs, and many homes use more than one.

A softener works by ion exchange and regenerates with salt. A whole-house carbon filter sits on the main line and improves how the water smells and tastes everywhere. A reverse osmosis unit normally goes under the kitchen sink for drinking and cooking water. None of them replaces the others, so start from the problem you want solved.

A softener normally goes in the garage, where the main water line can be routed through it. A softener loop is a U-shaped section of pipe that the builder leaves exposed in the garage wall for that purpose, usually with a drain and an electrical outlet nearby.

Many North Texas homes built since the 2000s have a loop, which makes installation simple. Where there is no loop, the plumber has to find a point after the outdoor faucets branch off, so that the lawn and garden are not watered with softened water, and provide a drain for the regeneration water.

Softened water is good for a water heater overall because it stops scale building up in the tank. It can, however, use up the heater’s sacrificial anode rod faster than hard water does.

The anode is a metal rod that corrodes so the steel tank does not. In a home with a softener it is worth having the anode checked every few years and replaced when it is spent. That small job can add years to a tank.

Both are usually seasonal and harmless. An earthy or musty taste in late summer comes from natural compounds released by algae in the North Texas lakes. A stronger chlorine smell for a few weeks, often in late winter or spring, happens when a water supplier temporarily changes its disinfectant to clean the pipes.

The North Texas Municipal Water District, which supplies Frisco, Prosper and other cities, announces its temporary disinfectant change each year, and other suppliers post similar notices. A carbon filter removes both the taste and the smell. If your water smells of rotten eggs at the hot tap only, the cause is in the water heater, and a plumber can deal with it.

When several drains back up together, the stoppage is in the main sewer line, not in any one fixture. The lowest drains in the house, usually a shower or a ground-floor toilet, show it first.

Stop running water, including the washing machine and dishwasher, because everything you send down will come back up. If your home has a cleanout in the yard, a plumber can open the line from there. If sewage is coming up indoors, keep people and pets away from it and call.

A sewer cleanout is a capped pipe that gives direct access to your main sewer line so it can be cleared or inspected. In most North Texas slab homes it is in a flower bed close to the foundation, often as two white or black caps side by side, on the side of the house that faces the sewer main.

Know where it is and keep it uncovered by mulch and plants. If the house has no cleanout, clearing the main line means pulling a toilet or going through a roof vent, which takes longer. Having one installed is usually worth it.

Chemical drain cleaners are not a good idea. They rarely clear a real stoppage, they can damage older pipes and finishes, and they leave a sink full of caustic liquid for whoever has to open the drain next.

A plunger or a hand auger is safer for a simple clog. If a drain is slow again soon after you clear it, something further down the line needs attention. Tell your plumber if you have used a chemical cleaner, so they can protect themselves.

Never put grease, cooking oil, wipes of any kind, paper towels, feminine products, dental floss or cat litter down a drain or toilet. A toilet is built for human waste and toilet paper and nothing else.

Wipes labelled flushable do not break down the way toilet paper does and are behind a large share of main line stoppages. In the kitchen, wipe greasy pans with a paper towel and put it in the bin. Go easy on the disposal with rice, pasta, coffee grounds and fibrous vegetable peelings.

Yes. In North Texas clay, soil movement can pull sewer pipe joints apart or leave a low spot, called a belly, where waste settles. Tree roots then find the leaking joints and grow into the pipe.

The signs are stoppages that return every few months, gurgling drains and patches of unusually green grass. Homes built before the 1980s may have cast iron or clay sewer pipe, which is more vulnerable than modern PVC. A camera inspection shows exactly what is happening inside the line before anyone starts digging.

Call a plumber for stoppages and plumbing problems between the fixtures and the septic tank. Call a licensed septic company for pumping the tank, servicing an aerobic unit, or problems with the spray heads or drain field.

Many homes on acreage around Aubrey, Pilot Point and Krugerville have septic systems, and in clay soil those are often aerobic systems that spray treated water over the lawn. In Texas these are called on-site sewage facilities; they are regulated by the state and permitted through the county. Have the tank pumped on the schedule your maintenance provider recommends, commonly every three to five years, and keep wipes, grease and harsh chemicals out of it.

Use as little water as you can, check that the system’s breaker has not tripped, and call your septic maintenance provider. The alarm means either the water level in the tank is too high or the air pump has stopped.

After heavy rain the ground may be too wet for the system to spray, and the alarm often clears by itself within a day once water use drops. If it does not, or if drains in the house are slow at the same time, do not ignore it. A plumber can tell you whether the trouble is in the house plumbing or in the septic system.

Before a hard freeze, disconnect garden hoses, cover outdoor faucets, insulate any exposed pipe, find your main water shut-off, and keep the heat on. During the freeze, open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls and let those faucets drip.

Keep the garage door closed if a water heater or water lines are in the garage. Wrap the exposed pipes under an outdoor tankless heater. Shut off and drain the irrigation backflow device if it is above ground. North Texas homes are not built for long freezes: water lines often run through the attic and outside walls, where a night in the teens can reach them.

Drip the faucets on outside walls and the one farthest from where the water enters the house, on both hot and cold. A steady trickle about the width of a pencil lead is enough.

Moving water freezes more slowly, and an open faucet relieves the pressure that actually bursts a pipe. If your city or utility district asks residents to stop dripping to protect system pressure, as some did in February 2021, follow that instruction and rely on insulation, open cabinets and heat instead.

If a faucet gives only a trickle in freezing weather, leave it open, turn up the heat, open the cabinet doors and warm the pipe gently with a hair dryer or a space heater placed at a safe distance. Never use a torch or any open flame.

Find your main shut-off now, because a frozen pipe may already be split and will only show it when it thaws. If you cannot reach the frozen section, or you see a bulge or a crack in a pipe, shut the water off at the main and call a plumber.

Shut off the main water valve first. Then open a few faucets to drain the lines, switch off electricity to any area where water is near outlets or light fittings if you can do so safely, and move what you can out of the water.

If the water will be off for some time and you have an electric water heater, switch it off at the breaker so the elements do not run dry. Take photographs for your insurance company before you clean up, then call a plumber. If water is coming through a ceiling, stay out from under it.

Leave the heat on at 55°F or higher, shut off the main water valve, and open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls. With the main off, a burst pipe can release only the water already in the lines.

Ask a neighbor to look in if a hard freeze is forecast. If your water heater has a vacation setting, the manufacturer’s label explains how to use it. Disconnect hoses and cover the outdoor faucets before you go.

The February 2021 freeze showed that North Texas plumbing fails when a long freeze and a power cut arrive together. DFW Airport recorded 2 degrees below zero on February 16, 2021, temperatures stayed below freezing for days, and homes without power could not keep their pipes warm.

The lasting lessons are simple. Know where your main shut-off is and make sure it works. Insulate pipes in the attic, the garage and outside walls. Have a plan for an outdoor tankless heater if the power goes out. Keep a few faucet covers and a meter key in the garage, because the stores sell out the day before every freeze.

Shut off the water supply to the irrigation system, open the small test valves on the backflow device to let it drain, and insulate any part that sits above ground. The backflow device is usually the first piece of plumbing on a property to freeze and crack.

Many North Texas systems have the device in a box below ground, where it is better protected, but the box should still be closed and covered. If yours cracked in a past freeze and now leaks when the system runs, it has to be replaced, and in most cities it must then be tested by a licensed backflow tester.

PEX is flexible plastic water pipe made of cross-linked polyethylene, and it is reliable. It has been the standard for water lines in new North Texas homes for roughly twenty years.

It resists scale and corrosion, has fewer joints than copper, and can stretch slightly if water freezes inside it, although it can still burst and its fittings can still fail. PEX must be kept out of sunlight and away from the hot flue of a gas water heater. Most problems with it are at fittings and connections, not in the pipe.

A manifold system feeds each fixture in the house with its own PEX line from a central panel, called a manifold, instead of branching one large pipe from room to room. Each line usually has its own shut-off at the manifold.

The advantages are fewer hidden joints and the ability to turn off one bathroom without shutting down the house. If your home has a manifold, it is typically in the garage, a utility room or a closet wall. Label the valves if the builder did not.

In a house under ten years old the common plumbing problems are builder-grade faucet cartridges and toilet parts wearing out, high water pressure, a water heater that has never been flushed, and drains affected by the first few years of soil settlement.

Check your builder’s warranty before paying for a repair in the first years. It is also worth having the pressure tested, confirming there is an expansion tank on the water heater and that it still holds air, and learning where the main shut-off, the cleanouts and any manifold are.

You need an expansion tank if your plumbing is a closed system, meaning there is a pressure-reducing valve, check valve or backflow preventer on the main line that stops water flowing back toward the street. Most newer North Texas homes are closed systems.

Water expands as it heats. With nowhere to go, the pressure rises until the relief valve drips or fittings are strained. An expansion tank is a small tank on the cold line above the heater with a cushion of air inside. They fail after some years, and a tank that feels heavy and full of water is no longer working.

The water supplier is responsible for the main in the street and the line up to and including the meter. The homeowner is responsible for everything from the meter to the house and inside it.

Your supplier may be a city, such as Aubrey, Denton, Little Elm or Frisco, or a utility district such as Mustang Special Utility District, which serves many neighborhoods around Aubrey and Cross Roads. A leak between the meter and the house is yours to repair, and it will show on your bill. Sewer lines work the same way: the line from the house to the main is usually the homeowner’s.

Look up the plumber’s name or license number on the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners website, tsbpe.texas.gov. The search shows the license type, whether it is current and when it expires.

Texas requires a plumbing company to show its name and its Responsible Master Plumber’s license number on its vehicles and in its advertising. If a company cannot give you a license number, do not hire it.

Texas issues four main levels: Plumber’s Apprentice (a registration for people learning the trade under supervision), Tradesman Plumber-Limited (licensed for work on one- and two-family homes), Journeyman Plumber, and Master Plumber, which is the highest.

A Responsible Master Plumber is a Master Plumber who takes legal responsibility for a plumbing company’s work, and who must carry liability insurance and keep proof of it on file with the State Board. Every plumbing company in Texas has to operate under one.

Yes. Hymns Plumbing operates under Texas Master Plumber license M-45603, held by Isiah Henderson, who is the company’s Responsible Master Plumber. The State Board’s records showed the license as current, with an insurance certificate on file, when this page was last checked in October 2026.

You can confirm it yourself at tsbpe.texas.gov by searching for license number 45603.

Hymns Plumbing is based in Aubrey, Texas, and works in northern Denton County and along US 380: Aubrey, Pilot Point, Krugerville, Cross Roads, Providence Village, Little Elm, Oak Point, Frisco, Prosper, Celina, Denton, Corinth, Lake Dallas, Argyle, Justin and Sanger.

If your town is not on the list, call (940) 510-7033 with your address and ask.

Ask for the license number, whether the company is insured, who will actually do the work, whether a permit is needed and who obtains it, and what the price includes. Ask to hear the price before the work starts.

For a water heater, ask whether the quote covers the pan, the relief line, the expansion tank, the gas connector, removal of the old tank and the permit. Two quotes that look far apart are often quotes for two different jobs.

Anyone paid to do plumbing work in Texas must hold a plumbing license or be registered and working under a licensed plumber. A homeowner may do plumbing work on their own homestead, but city permits and inspections still apply.

Gas piping and water heater installation are not good places to save money. A mistake with a gas connection, a vent or a relief valve can injure someone, and unpermitted work can cause trouble when the house is sold or an insurance claim is made.

Photographs help most. For a water heater, send or describe the label on the side of the tank (brand, capacity, gas or electric, and the date), where the heater is in the house, and what it is doing.

For a leak or a drain problem, say which fixtures are affected, when it started and whether it is getting worse. Mention the age of the house and anything that was done recently, such as a remodel, new appliances or foundation work.

If you smell gas, leave the building immediately and call your gas utility or 911 from outside. Do not switch lights or appliances on or off, do not use a phone indoors, and do not try to find or fix the leak yourself.

Most homes in this area are served by Atmos Energy or CoServ Gas, and both have emergency lines that are answered day and night. Homes on propane should call their propane supplier or 911. Once the utility has made the house safe, a licensed plumber can repair the gas piping and pressure test it before service is restored.