Private community · Scottsdale

Desert Mountain: where the leaks are

Established in 1986 and still building today, Desert Mountain contains every generation of pipe laid in the Valley over the past four decades, on custom homes where no two lots are quite alike.

Call (602) 830-9717 Text us a photo

Desert Mountain is a private master-planned community in far north Scottsdale, established in 1986 and still building, which means the whole range of supply materials from mid-1980s copper to current PEX exists inside one community.

Desert Mountain was established in 1986, its first golf course opened the following year, and residential construction has continued ever since, with new villages being built into the 2020s. That is close to four decades of continuous building inside a single community.

It is the exact opposite of a tight-window community, and it deserves to be read that way. Where Terravita gives one dependable answer about what is under a slab, Desert Mountain gives none at all. Mid-1980s copper and current PEX both exist here, on custom homes built by many different hands, on lots that each had to solve their own terrain.

A wide desert valley view at sunset with high ground in the foreground — Across a community this large and this long-running, the only safe assumption is that no two properties were built the same way.

What plumbing does a Desert Mountain home have?

There is no single answer, because the community was established in 1986 and is still building: a house from early on is on mid-1980s copper, one built recently is on PEX, and everything in between exists as well.

That makes the property history the most valuable thing anyone can hand us. The year narrows the material. A known repipe or remodel narrows it further and flags a transition. And on custom homes, the original builder’s practice matters, because custom work varies far more than tract work does — routing, depth and fitting choices are decisions rather than defaults.

Desert Mountain at a glance, for leak work.
What we go on	In Desert Mountain
Build window	1986 onward, still building
City or jurisdiction	Scottsdale, Arizona
Likely supply material	mid-1980s copper through to current PEX, depending entirely on the individual home
What tends to fail first	whatever that particular house and that particular decade are prone to
What we check first	the year and the history of the specific property, before any assumption is made

How does Desert Mountain sit against Scottsdale’s housing?

It contains Scottsdale’s whole range inside itself, which is something almost no other community can say.

The city figure describes the middle of this community rather than the community itself. The American Community Survey puts Scottsdale’s median year of construction at 1990, four years after Desert Mountain was established and decades before its most recent homes.

Housing across Scottsdale city, Arizona	Share
Median year built	1990
Built before 1980	29 percent
Built since 2000	26 percent

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2023). Geography: Census place.

Does a custom home change how you look for a leak?

It changes what we can assume, which in practice means it changes how much of the first visit is spent tracing rather than testing. Tract housing lets you predict where a line runs; a custom house does not.

In a tract neighbourhood, floor plans repeat, so the route of a supply line under one slab is a good guide to the next. On custom homes every route was decided individually, often around terrain that had to be worked with rather than levelled. Lines take the path the site allowed, at depths that vary, with bends that exist for reasons nobody wrote down.

So the sequence adjusts. Tracing the route comes earlier and matters more, listening equipment gets used to follow a line rather than to confirm a guess, and nothing gets opened until the route is established. It is a slower start and a much shorter finish.

Asked and answered

What do people in Desert Mountain ask us?

What kind of pipe is in a Desert Mountain home?

It depends entirely on the individual house. The community was established in 1986 and is still building, so mid-1980s copper and current PEX both exist inside it, along with everything in between. The year the house was finished, and any repipe or remodel since, narrow it far more than the community name does.

Why do you ask so many questions about the house before coming out?

Because custom homes do not repeat. In tract housing the route of a buried line under one slab predicts the next; on a custom house every route was decided individually, often around terrain. Knowing the year, the builder and what work has been done since turns a long tracing exercise into a short one.

Is the leak more likely to be outside the house here?

On large lots, often yes, simply because there is more buried pipe outside than in. Closing the shut-off at the house and watching the meter separates the buried service line from the building; isolating the irrigation separates the landscape from both. Those two tests take minutes and decide where the rest of the work happens.

Which other far-north Scottsdale communities do we cover?

Troon Northfrom about 1990, high desert and granite Terravita1993 to 1999, one build generation throughout Scottsdale leak detectionthe wider Scottsdale page, with the full Census profile All service areasevery part of the valley we cover

Unexplained water use at a Desert Mountain property?

Tell us the year of the house and what the meter does with the building isolated, and we will say what it points to.