The Pre-Monsoon Home Checklist for West Valley Property Owners

Monsoon season in Maricopa County runs roughly from early July into late September. Some years it barely shows up. Other years a single cell parks over the West Valley and drops a great deal of rain in under an hour, with strong outflow winds arriving ahead of it.

The homes that come through fine are almost never the lucky ones. They are the ones where somebody spent a Saturday in June looking at the roof and the drainage. That is the whole trick. Below is what actually matters out here, in the order we would walk a property.

What Fails First in This Climate

Desert sun is harder on a roof than rain is. A decade of brutal afternoons and relentless UV does more damage to roofing materials than a decade of storms would in a milder climate. So the failure points here are specific and predictable.

• Dried and cracked roof sealant. Around vent pipes, cooler curbs, satellite mounts and skylights. The mastic shrinks, pulls away from the flashing, and opens a gap. This is the single most common entry point we see.
• Tile roofs with failed underlayment. On a tile roof the tile is a rain shield and a sun shield. The underlayment beneath it is what actually keeps water out, and it has a service life. Tiles look perfect while the paper under them has gone brittle.
• Foam and coated flat roofs that have gone thin. Elastomeric coatings chalk out and wear down, especially where foot traffic crosses to an HVAC unit.
• Parapet walls and scuppers on flat roofs. Cracks in the stucco cap let water into the wall assembly, and a plugged scupper turns a flat roof into a pond.
• Stucco cracks and dried weep screed low on the wall, where wind driven rain gets pushed sideways into the wall.

The Roof Walk

If you are not comfortable on a roof, do not get on it. A tile roof in particular is easy to damage and easy to slip on, and cracked tiles you create in June become leaks in August. Binoculars from the ground or a phone camera on a pole will show you most of what you need.

1. Look at every penetration. Plumbing vents, furnace and water heater flues, bathroom fan caps, solar mounts. You are looking for cracked sealant, lifted flashing and rusted vent collars.
2. Check the valleys. Where two roof planes meet, debris collects. A clogged valley redirects water sideways under tile.
3. Look at the ridge and hip mortar on tile roofs. Crumbling mortar means tiles can shift in wind.
4. Count broken and slipped tiles. One cracked tile is not an emergency, but it is a hole. Fix it in June, not in August.
5. Inspect the evaporative cooler. If you still run one, check the pan for rust perforation and the roof curb for a good seal. Cooler pans that leak in July usually leaked a little in June.
6. Clear the gutters and check the downspout discharge. A downspout that dumps against a foundation or into a planter next to the slab is a problem waiting on the right storm.

Around the Property

Water damage in the West Valley is often a grading problem, not a roof problem. Newer lots in Vistancia and the Lake Pleasant corridor were graded to shed water in a particular direction, and landscaping added later frequently undoes that.

• Walk the perimeter and look for soil, decorative rock or new planter beds sitting higher than the weep screed at the base of the stucco. Dirt should stay a few inches below it.
• Confirm the ground slopes away from the house on all four sides. Ponding against a foundation after a storm is a warning.
• Clear rock and debris out of any yard drains, and check that the drain outlet is not buried.
• Look at trees. Desert species shed limbs in outflow winds, and shallow-rooted trees come over whole in saturated soil. Thin them before July.
• Secure anything that becomes a projectile: patio umbrellas, shade sails, trampolines, empty planters.
• Check that your pool equipment pad and any exterior electrical sit above the local ponding line.

Inside the House

Two quick jobs. First, find your main water shutoff and turn it to make sure it is not seized. Second, flush the AC condensate line. A blocked condensate drain in August dumps water into the same ceiling that a roof leak would, and homeowners often assume it was the storm.

While you are in the attic, look at the underside of the roof deck with a flashlight. Old water staining tells you where the roof has leaked before. That spot will leak again.

During and Right After a Storm

During the storm, stay off the roof. Nothing you can do up there in high wind is worth it. Put a bucket under an active drip, move furniture and electronics out from under it, and pull rugs off wet carpet so the dye does not transfer.

After the wind stops, take photos before you clean anything up. Wide shots and close shots. Insurers ask, and a photo taken twenty minutes after a storm carries more weight than a description written a week later. If you are not sure how a claim gets built, our page on working with insurance carriers covers what documentation usually matters.

Then do a walk. Ceilings, closet ceilings, the tops of interior walls, the base of exterior walls, garage, and the attic if you can get up there safely. Water travels. A roof penetration on the north side can show up as a stain over the kitchen.

When a Wet Ceiling Is an Emergency

Honest answer: not every one is. Here is how we sort it.

Call now, at any hour

• The ceiling is sagging or bulging. Drywall holding water is heavy and it comes down all at once. Do not stand under it.
• Water is running, not dripping.
• Water is anywhere near light fixtures, can lights, ceiling fans or a panel. Kill the breaker to that circuit and call.
• The water is gray or smells like sewage. That is a different category entirely and it needs professional sewage cleanup, not a shop vac.
• Multiple rooms are affected, or you can hear water inside a wall.
• Anyone in the home is immune compromised, elderly, or has asthma.

Can reasonably wait for daylight

• A single stain the size of a dinner plate that is not growing, with a bucket under it and the drip slowing.
• A small wet spot on tile or vinyl in a room you can close off, already wiped up.
• Damp drywall you can dry with a fan and open windows within a few hours, in a room with no carpet or pad.

The thing to understand is that the clock starts when the water arrives. Mold can begin to establish on wet drywall, carpet pad and framing within 24 to 48 hours. Waiting until morning is fine. Waiting until the weekend is usually not, and “it dried on its own” is the sentence that precedes most of the mold jobs we run in October.

One Note on Drying

Surface dry is not dry. A ceiling can look fine and feel dry while the insulation above it is soaked and the top plate is holding moisture. Meters and thermal imaging exist because eyes are not reliable here. If you had water in a ceiling or a wall cavity and you never confirmed it was dry all the way through, treat that as unresolved.

If You Need Help

911 Restoration of West Valley is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and our crews aim to be on site within 45 minutes. We handle storm and water damage restoration for homes and businesses across Peoria, El Mirage, Surprise and the rest of our West Valley coverage area. Technicians are IICRC certified, and the visual inspection is free.

If a monsoon cell just went through and you are looking at a stain that was not there yesterday, call (602) 669-3861.