Just moved to Southwest Florida? Eight plumbing things that are different here

You unpacked, you found the grocery store, and then the water bill came, or the insurer asked for something called a 4-point, or a neighbor mentioned that your street is all on wells. Plumbing works the same way in Fort Myers as it did in Ohio or New Jersey. The house around it does not. Here are the eight differences that come up most often in a new resident’s first year, in roughly the order they tend to show up.

1. The house sits on a slab, and the pipes are in the attic

There is no basement in Southwest Florida, and almost no crawl spaces. Your house is a concrete slab on the ground with block or frame walls. The water supply lines run one of two ways: under the slab, cast into the concrete when the house was built, or through the attic and down inside the walls. Newer homes and repiped older homes use the attic route.

That has two consequences. A leak in a slab line shows up as a warm spot on the floor, a water bill that jumps, or the sound of running water when nothing is on, and it is fixed by rerouting the line overhead, not by digging up the floor. And a leak in an attic line shows up as a ceiling stain. Either way, the first thing to learn is where your main shutoff is and that it turns.

2. Nothing freezes, but everything corrodes

Your pipes will not freeze. A hard freeze reaches us a few nights a decade, and the exposure is limited to outdoor hose bibs and irrigation devices. What replaces winter as the enemy is heat, humidity, and salt. A garage water heater lives at 95 degrees in 80 percent humidity for half the year and lasts fewer years than the same unit up north. On Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, and the islands, salt air corrodes every exposed metal fitting. And the attic your supply lines run through can pass 130 degrees on a summer afternoon, which is hard on plastic pipe over decades.

3. The water is hard and chlorinated

Lee and Collier County utilities draw from wells and the river, treat it, and disinfect with chlorine or chloramine. The result meets standards and tastes like it. Hardness leaves white scale on faucets and shower glass, and shortens the life of water heaters and dishwashers. Chloramine in particular is noticed by people with sensitive skin, and by aquarium owners. A whole-home filter, a softener, or both is one of the more common first-year upgrades here, and it is a comfort and appliance decision rather than a safety one.

4. Some neighborhoods are on wells and septic

Lehigh Acres, Alva, Buckingham, parts of eastern Estero, and Golden Gate Estates in Collier County are largely on private wells and septic systems. If that is you, the utility bill you are not getting comes with responsibilities: the well pump and pressure tank are yours, water testing is up to you, and the septic tank needs pumping on a schedule. Well water here tends to be harder and higher in iron and sulfur than utility water, so treatment is nearly universal. No sewer charge on your bill is the tell.

5. The pipe material depends on the decade

Southwest Florida grew in waves, and each wave used a different pipe:

• Before the mid-1970s: cast iron drains under the slab and copper or galvanized supply. Cast iron here is at the end of its life; a camera inspection tells you where yours stands.
• Late 1970s through the mid-1990s: polybutylene supply pipe, gray and flexible. Insurers commonly refuse to write a policy with it in place. It is replaced on sight.
• 1980s through the early 2000s: CPVC supply, cream colored and rigid, now aging into brittleness in hot attics.
• After that: PVC drains and PEX or CPVC supply, generally fine.

Look at the pipes at your water heater. Ten seconds there tells you which decade you bought.

6. Shutoffs are a seasonal habit

Half the houses on some streets are empty from May to November. The people who live here year round have learned from them: turn the water off at the main when you leave for more than a few days, and on the water heater too. Know where the main is, turn it once a season so it does not seize, and consider a leak detector with an automatic shutoff if you travel.

7. Hurricane season has a plumbing checklist

June through November. The plumbing part is short: fill tubs and containers before a storm in case the utility loses pressure, know where the main is, turn off the water heater if the power goes out for long, and after the storm wait for the utility’s word before drinking tap water if a boil notice is issued. If you are on a well, a generator or a plan for no water is part of storm prep.

8. Your insurer, the utility, and the county all care about your plumbing

Three pieces of mail will arrive that you never got up north. Your insurer will ask for a 4-point inspection on an older home, which looks at pipe materials, the water heater, and leaks, and can hold up the policy over polybutylene or an old tank. The utility will send a letter about the backflow device on your irrigation or your service line, which has to be tested by a certified tester on a schedule. And the county keeps permit records that anyone can search, so the water heater the last owner swapped without a permit will show up when you sell. Plumbing here is licensed, permitted work, and the licensed-and-insured question is one to ask every time.

Find the main shutoff and turn it. Read the water heater label for its age. Look at the pipe at the water heater and match it to the decades above. Check whether your bill has a sewer charge. Find the backflow device. Cover the hose bibs on the one cold night. None of that needs a plumber. Diagnosing a slab leak, replacing a water heater, repiping polybutylene, testing a backflow device, and anything with a permit attached does.

If something on this list turned up a question in your new house, send us the year it was built, what you found at the water heater, and what the bill or the letter said. We will tell you what it means here and what, if anything, needs doing.