Apartment Complex Backflow Testing in the Valley

Walk a garden-style complex in the Valley and you'll often find three kinds of backflow protection, each with its own test date.

• The domestic service. If the property is on one or more master meters, Mesa City Code 8-1-8 requires an RP assembly. Scottsdale's Revised Code 49-62 requires one where apartments, condos or townhouses have more than two units per meter. Big properties often have several services, so several assemblies.
• The landscape water. Common-area irrigation usually runs through a PVB or an RP. In Mesa, a meter feeding both domestic and landscape water needs the landscape side isolated on top of the service assembly. Our commercial irrigation backflow testing page covers which one you need.
• Around the pool. Mesa wants a PVB on a pool's automatic filler or an RP at the service.

Phoenix's list in City Code 37-144 doesn't name apartments as such. It does name multi-story buildings with booster pumps or storage tanks, and irrigation systems, and the city decides unlisted cases one at a time. A Phoenix complex with landscape water almost always has at least one testable assembly.

The fastest way to build your list is the city's last batch of notices. Each one names a meter and an assembly, and Phoenix's report form records the on-site location of each assembly. If you can't find one, see where a backflow preventer usually sits.

The duty follows the water account, not the lease. Phoenix defines the customer as "any person that has physical control, authority or responsibility for a water system," and that person tests every assembly at least once a year (City Code 37-143). Tempe mails its notice to whoever pays the water bill, 45 days ahead of the due date. On a master-metered complex that's the owner or the management company, not the residents.

Phoenix's test report asks for both the management company and the owner, with contact names and phone numbers. Keep both current with the city. A notice that goes to a former manager is how a due date gets missed. If a lease or management agreement splits costs differently, see who pays for backflow testing.

An outage behind the domestic assembly reaches every unit it feeds. The test closes the assembly's shutoff valves while the gauges are read, so residents downstream lose water for that stretch.

Here's the play for a large property:

1. 1Line up the due dates. Each city sets its own due dates, so ask the program office whether assemblies with scattered dates can be brought onto one cycle before you test any of them early.
2. 2Test the landscape assemblies first. Irrigation and pool assemblies can be tested without touching domestic water.
3. 3Post a resident notice for the domestic assembly, with the date and a time window, so nobody is mid-shower when the valves close.
4. 4Plan for a failed test. If an assembly fails, it needs a repair and a retest. Doing both on one visit, when the parts are on hand, saves a second outage.

Some buildings can't take an outage at all. Tempe and Scottsdale require parallel assemblies where water can't be interrupted for testing, and taller buildings with booster pumps have their own rules. See high-rise backflow testing.

Single-family rental homes are usually outside the program. Arizona's rule and Phoenix's code exempt single-family residences used solely as homes unless a cross-connection problem is identified. A duplex in Scottsdale with two units on its meter isn't caught by the more-than-two-units rule either, though a landscape meter or other hazard can still require an assembly. Mesa requires service protection on every dedicated landscape connection, residential or commercial.

HQ is certified to test and certify domestic backflow assemblies and files the results with the city. On an apartment property that covers the domestic service, landscape and pool-area assemblies. Fire backflow assemblies and fire sprinkler work are outside what HQ does. Send us the city notice for each property, and we schedule the tests against each due date.

Each property gets an upfront price before work starts. If an assembly leaks or fails, we repair it and retest it. If one gets stolen, see stolen backflow assembly replacement. Related: multifamily plumbing, HOA plumbing and property management plumbing.