The Landlord's Guide to Between-Tenant Plumbing Checks

Plumber inspecting under a kitchen sink during a make-ready walkthrough

The Vacancy Is Your Inspection Window

Every plumbing failure in a rental costs you twice: once for the repair, and again in tenant goodwill, emergency scheduling, and sometimes displaced-tenant logistics. The between-tenant vacancy is the one moment you can open every cabinet, run every fixture, and fix small problems on your schedule instead of a tenant's emergency timeline. Make-ready work is literally in our company name — Make Ready Repairs has been turning DFW rentals since 2013 — and this is the plumbing checklist we run on every turnover.

Supply Lines and Angle Stops First

The highest-risk items in any rental are the flexible supply lines feeding toilets, faucets, dishwashers, and washing machines. A failed toilet supply line running overnight is the classic catastrophic rental claim — far more common than burst pipes. During vacancy:

Inspect every supply line for bulging, corrosion at the crimp, kinks, or rubber lines past their prime. Replace suspect lines with braided stainless — they're cheap insurance.

Replace washing machine hoses on age, not appearance. If you can't remember when they were installed, that's the answer.

Turn every angle stop (the small shutoff under each fixture) fully off and back on. A stop that won't turn, weeps at the stem, or spins freely is useless in the emergency it exists for. Seized angle stops are among the most common findings in our make-ready walkthroughs, and vacancy is the painless time to swap them.

Water Heater: Check the Birth Certificate

Find the manufacture date on the data plate (it's encoded in the serial number if not printed outright). A tank unit near or past the ten-year mark deserves a hard look before a new lease begins — mid-lease water heater failures combine an unhappy tenant, an urgent replacement, and often water damage in one package. While you're there: look for rust streaks or dampness at the fittings and in the pan, confirm the pan drains somewhere sensible, make sure the relief valve discharge tube is intact, and set the temperature to a safe, sensible level for tenants. If the unit is borderline, a water heater evaluation during vacancy lets you decide on your terms — replace now at your convenience, or document its condition and budget for it.

Toilets: The Silent Money Leak

A toilet that runs intermittently because of a worn flapper can silently waste an enormous amount of water — and in most single-family rentals where the tenant pays water, it becomes a dispute; where you pay, it's your bill. On every turnover:

Drop food coloring in each tank; if color reaches the bowl without a flush, replace the flapper.

Flush and watch the full cycle: strong flush, clean refill, complete shutoff.

Rock the bowl gently with your knees. Any movement means the flange connection needs attention before it becomes a wax-ring leak into the subfloor.

Replace weak flappers and hissing fill valves on the spot — they're trivial during vacancy and a service call later.

Run Everything, Then Look Down

Water finds problems that eyes miss. Run every fixture for a few full minutes — sinks, tubs, showers, dishwasher cycle, disposal — then open every cabinet and look and feel underneath. Check for slow drains while you're at it; a tub that drains lazily is an easy fix now and a move-in complaint later. Outside, test the hose bibs and confirm they don't drip when closed. Finally, verify the main shutoff at the house operates, and note its location for your records and your tenant's move-in packet — the tenant who can find the shutoff turns a flood into a puddle.

Document Everything

Photograph the water heater data plate, the meter reading at turnover, under-sink conditions, and any repairs made. Time-stamped move-in condition photos protect your security-deposit position, support any later insurance conversation, and give the next make-ready a baseline. A written record that the flappers, supply lines, and stops were checked at turnover is exactly the paper trail a professional landlord wants.

Or Have Us Run the Whole List

Plumbing is one lane of a full turnover — we handle this checklist as part of our full make-ready service, alongside paint, cleaning, and repairs, with one invoice and photo documentation included. And if a check turns up something bigger, like a toilet that needs resetting, it gets fixed in the same visit rather than after move-in.

Turning a property this month? Call (682) 900-4100 — make-ready walkthroughs are free for property managers and landlords, and you'll have an exact flat-rate price for the full scope before any work starts.