Your Three-Year-Old House Has a Plumbing Problem. That Is Normal.
In a house this new, nothing has worn out. What you are seeing is something that was built wrong and took two years to reveal itself.
August 23, 2026 · 7 min read
Princeton has added houses faster than almost anywhere in Collin County over the last five years, and the same is true along US-380 generally and in the big Forney developments to the south. We get called to a lot of very new houses, and homeowners are often apologetic about it — the house is three years old, surely nothing should be wrong yet.
Nothing has worn out. That is exactly right. What is failing is something that was installed incorrectly and took two or three years to make itself known, and that difference matters, because a defect and a wear item are treated very differently by a builder warranty.
What we actually find in three-year-old houses
Drain lines without enough fall
Drainage relies on slope, and the standard is a quarter inch of fall per foot of run. A line laid closer to level will move water when the fixture is running hard and will not carry solids reliably. The symptom is a specific fixture — often a guest bathroom or a rarely used tub — that clogs repeatedly while the rest of the house is fine.
Shower pans that were never properly tested
A shower pan is supposed to be flood tested before tile goes on. When that step gets skipped on a fast build, a pinhole in the liner shows up as damp baseboard in the adjoining room or a stain on a ceiling below, usually a year or two in once enough water has accumulated.
Condensate lines routed badly
This is the most common of all. An HVAC condensate line needs continuous fall to drain. Built with a sag or a section running uphill, it holds water, grows biological slime, blocks, and backs up — into the pan if you are lucky, into the ceiling if the pan or its switch is also wrong.
Debris left in supply lines
Solder fragments, PEX shavings and plain construction dirt get left in lines during the build. They travel until they lodge in a cartridge or a fill valve. It presents as one fixture with poor flow or a valve that will not seal while everything else in the house is normal.
Undersized return air
On a two-storey build this is the reason the upstairs never cools properly, and it is a design decision rather than a fault that developed. No amount of servicing the equipment addresses it.
How Texas builder warranties usually break down
Every builder's document differs and yours is the one that governs, but the common structure has three tiers: a short period covering workmanship and finishes, a longer one covering the systems — plumbing, electrical, HVAC — and a long structural period covering load-bearing elements.
Plumbing and HVAC defects generally sit in the middle tier, which is often around two years. That is precisely the window in which the defects above tend to surface, which is why acting promptly rather than living with a slow drain matters financially.
What to check now if your house is new
- Run every fixture in the house, including the ones in rooms you do not use. A guest bath that has never been used has never been tested.
- Fill and drain every tub. Watch how fast it goes down and listen for gurgling elsewhere.
- Look at the HVAC condensate line where it leaves the air handler. It should run continuously downhill with no sags, and it should have a working overflow switch.
- Check the water pressure at a hose bib. New subdivisions frequently run high street pressure and the PRV setting is worth verifying.
- Feel the baseboards and the floor in rooms adjoining showers, particularly on the far side of the wall from a shower valve.
- Look in the attic at the water heater pan and its drain line, if the heater is up there.
Second opinions are reasonable
Builder warranty work is often routed back to the same trade contractor who did the original installation. Sometimes that is exactly right and they fix it properly. Sometimes you get told the behaviour is normal.
An independent assessment costs comparatively little and it changes the conversation, because you are no longer describing a symptom — you are presenting a diagnosis. We do this a lot in the newer Collin and Kaufman County subdivisions and we will tell you plainly whether what you are seeing is a defect or genuinely is normal.
Family-owned, based in Rockwall. TX Master Plumber TXM11693, TX HVAC TACLB2360E. (469) 338-5533.
Frequently asked
Is a slow-draining tub in a new house a warranty issue?
It can be. If a single fixture drains slowly while the rest of the house is normal, and there is no history of anything being put down it, insufficient fall on that branch is a leading explanation — and that is an installation defect rather than a maintenance problem. Get it diagnosed and documented rather than living with it.
Should I let the builder’s plumber fix it or hire my own?
If it is inside the warranty period, start with the builder — you are entitled to the repair. What is worth doing alongside that is getting an independent diagnosis first, so that you know what the fault actually is before anybody tells you it is normal.
How long is plumbing covered on a new Texas home?
It depends entirely on your builder’s written warranty, which is the document that governs. The common pattern puts plumbing and mechanical systems in a middle tier that is often around two years, with structural elements covered much longer. Read yours rather than relying on the general shape of it.