Most Surrey Homeowners Make At Least One of These
TL;DR: Spring on the West Coast is rough on plumbing — and most homeowners don’t find out until something’s already gone wrong. Here are the five things we see every single April, why they happen, and what you can do about them before they turn into a phone call you didn’t want to make.
In This Post
- Turning On the Outdoor Tap Without Checking It First
- Ignoring the Sump Pump Until It’s Already Raining
- Skipping the Hot Water Tank Flush
- Using Chemical Drain Cleaners on Slow Drains
- Assuming the Irrigation System Is Fine Because It Worked Last Fall
Let’s be honest — nobody thinks about their plumbing until something goes wrong. That’s completely normal. You’ve got a house, a family, a job, and about a thousand other things competing for your attention. Plumbing sits quietly in the background doing its job, and most of the time you don’t need to think about it.
Spring is the exception.
The shift from winter to wet season here puts real stress on systems that have been sitting dormant for months. And the frustrating part is that most of what we get called out for in April was completely preventable in March. Not because homeowners are careless — but because nobody told them what to look for.
That’s what this post is for.
1. Turning On the Outdoor Tap Without Checking It First
This is the one we see most often, and honestly, it’s the easiest to avoid.
Here’s what happens: water sits in the outdoor tap line over winter, freezes, expands, and cracks the pipe — usually somewhere behind the wall where you can’t see it. The damage is already done by February. But you won’t know that until you hook up the garden hose in April and something feels off. Low pressure. A weird drip. Or worse — water showing up somewhere inside the house.
Before you connect the hose this year, just take 30 seconds:
- Turn the tap on slowly and watch the flow — anything irregular is worth a closer look
- Check around the exterior bib for frost damage or cracking
- If you have a weeping hose bib, it should drip briefly after you shut it off — if it doesn’t, the valve may have failed
Pro Tip: Do this before the hose even comes out of the garage. It takes less time than untangling the hose, and catching a cracked pipe early means a simple repair — not a wall opening.
The reason this matters so much is timing. A slow leak inside a wall can run for two weeks before you notice anything. By then, you’re not just fixing a pipe — you’re looking at drywall, insulation, and potentially mould. Getting ahead of it costs almost nothing.
2. Ignoring the Sump Pump Until It’s Already Raining
South Surrey and White Rock get a lot of spring rain — that’s just the reality of living here. If your home has a sump pump, it’s not a nice-to-have. It’s actively standing between your basement and a very bad week.
The problem is that most pumps fail during the first real storm of the season, not because they’re old or broken, but because nobody tested them beforehand. It’s not your fault — it’s just one of those things that’s easy to forget about when it’s been dry for a while.
How to Test Your Sump Pump
It really does take about two minutes:
- Pour a bucket of water slowly into the pit
- Watch whether the float triggers and the pump kicks on
- Make sure the water clears out quickly and completely
- Check that the discharge line is pointed away from your foundation — not back toward it
That’s it. If anything seems slow, weak, or unresponsive, that’s the conversation to have now — not at 11pm during a rainstorm.
Pro Tip: Sump pumps typically last 7–10 years. If yours is in that range, a quick spring inspection is worth it. Replacing a pump on your own schedule is a calm, straightforward job. Replacing it during a storm with water on the floor is a completely different experience.
3. Skipping the Hot Water Tank Flush
This one flies under the radar because nothing dramatic happens — it’s just a slow, quiet decline in efficiency that most people never connect back to sediment buildup.
BC municipal water carries enough minerals to leave real deposits at the bottom of your hot water tank over a winter of regular use. That layer of buildup sits between the heating element and the water, making the tank work harder to do the same job. Over time, that means higher energy bills, shorter tank life, and eventually a failure that feels sudden but wasn’t.
How to Flush Your Hot Water Tank
It’s genuinely not a big job:
- Connect a garden hose to the drain valve at the base of the tank
- Run the other end to a floor drain
- Open the valve and let it run until the water comes out clear
- Set aside about 20–30 minutes
If your tank is pushing ten years or more, this is also a good time to have a plumber check the anode rod. That’s the component that protects the tank from corrosion — and when it fails, the tank isn’t far behind. Catching it early is a much better conversation than an emergency replacement on a weekend.
4. Using Chemical Drain Cleaners on Slow Drains
We get it. There’s a slow drain, there’s a bottle of drain cleaner under the sink, and the fix feels obvious. We’re not here to make you feel bad about it — almost everyone does this at some point.
But here’s the thing: chemical cleaners don’t really fix the problem. They dissolve whatever’s causing the immediate blockage, but the root cause is usually still there. And in homes with ABS plastic drainpipes — which is most BC homes built in the 90s and 2000s — using these products repeatedly can actually break down the pipe joints over time. That’s a much bigger issue than a slow drain.
A gentler approach that actually works better:
- A basic hair snake (around fifteen dollars at any hardware store) clears most shower clogs in under five minutes
- Enzyme-based drain cleaners are slower but genuinely break down buildup without damaging the pipe
- If the drain keeps backing up no matter what you do, that’s your plumbing trying to tell you something — a venting issue or a deeper blockage that’s worth investigating properly
Pro Tip: If you’ve recently used chemical drain cleaners and need to call a plumber, mention it upfront. It affects how we approach the drain safely. No judgment — just good to know.
5. Assuming the Irrigation System Is Fine Because It Worked Last Fall
Out of sight, out of mind — totally understandable. But irrigation systems have a tough winter. Fittings shift. Seals dry out. Heads crack. And because everything is underground or tucked away, there’s no obvious sign that anything is wrong until you turn it on.
The real risk isn’t a broken sprinkler head — it’s a slow subsurface leak that runs undetected for weeks, quietly saturating the soil near your foundation before anyone notices a problem.
How to Run a Spring Irrigation Check
Before you turn the system on for the season, spend ten minutes walking it:
- Look at each zone visually for heads that are cracked, tilted, or sitting wrong
- Check that your backflow preventer is intact — in BC, it’s a legal requirement for any irrigation system on municipal water, and older ones often haven’t been looked at in years
- Turn each zone on for 60–90 seconds and actually watch what happens — coverage gaps and unexpected pooling are easy to spot if you’re paying attention
If your system is a few years old or hasn’t had a professional startup in a while, this is honestly the one item on this list where having someone do it properly tends to pay for itself. Catching a line issue before it runs all season is a very different repair than finding it in August.
The Bottom Line
None of this is complicated. None of it requires tools you don’t own or skills you haven’t got. It’s mostly just a 30-minute walk around the house in April before the season gets away from you.
We share this every spring, not to drum up business — most of these you can genuinely handle yourself. We share it because these are the exact five things that fill our schedule every mid-April, and by then, the damage has usually been building for two weeks already.
Check the tap. Test the pump. Flush the tank. Skip the drain chemicals. Walk the irrigation zones.
That’s it. And if something doesn’t look right and you’d rather have a second set of eyes on it, we’re here — no pressure, no upsell, just an honest look at what’s going on.
Written by the licensed plumbers at South Surrey Plumbing. Serving South Surrey, White Rock, and the surrounding area. Licensed and insured.
