Plumber in Vistara, Apache Junction, AZ

Softening prevents new scale; it does not dissolve what has already formed. That single fact is why the best time to install a softener is before the water heater has spent years accumulating sediment and before fixture cartridges have been scored by mineral.

A new home that starts on softened water gets meaningfully longer life out of its water heater, dishwasher, washing machine, ice maker and every fixture in the house. Do it at year eight instead and you are protecting equipment that is already partway through a shortened life.

Most new homes here are plumbed with a softener loop in the garage, which makes installation straightforward. Sizing comes from measured hardness, household size and actual daily usage, and we fit metered demand-initiated regeneration rather than a timer head.

Worth adding at the same time: carbon filtration ahead of the softener for chlorine and taste, and an under-sink reverse osmosis unit for drinking water and clear ice. Doing all of it in one visit costs considerably less than three separate ones.

New construction is not free of plumbing problems — they are just different problems. What we see in the first couple of years is generally workmanship rather than materials.

Common items: a drain that is slow from day one because of a fitting or slope issue, a toilet that rocks because the flange sits slightly low, a shower valve set at the wrong depth for the finished wall, a water heater with no expansion tank on a closed system, an angle stop that weeps, or a hose bib that was never properly sealed at the stucco.

Most of those are builder warranty items in the first year and worth pursuing that way rather than paying for. Document with photos, report in writing, and keep a record.

Where we help is diagnosing whether something genuinely is a defect — builders will sometimes tell a homeowner that a slow drain is "normal" when it is not — and handling anything outside the warranty period or outside its scope. We will tell you honestly when the answer is "go back to your builder, this is theirs."