Port Townsend: The Lawn at Our Condo Complex Is Flooding and the Master Bill Is Huge

Why this happens in Port Townsend

The most common cause we find in Port Townsend is a break on a private main. Older mains between buildings fail at couplings and splits. On acreage toward Cape George with clay seams in the uplands underneath, that's where we look first.

We also check a failed drain system, because in Port Townsend it explains a real share of condo or HOA common area flooding calls. Flooding only during rain means drainage, not a pressurized leak.

Don't overlook a slab leak in a lower level. A persistently wet hallway or utility room. On Port Townsend properties from an 1880s Victorian seaport ringed by mid-century neighborhoods it comes up more than you'd think.

Before you call

On the Cape George and Discovery Bay parcels the runs are long and the correlator narrows them.

Before we arrive in Port Townsend, three things you can do: locate the master meter valve and any building shutoffs and keys. Tape off the wet area and keep residents clear. Find whatever site plan exists. None of it requires tools, and all of it helps us trace the private mains faster on small Victorian lots in Uptown.

What happens next

Fixing condo or HOA common area flooding here usually ends with commercial leak detection near Kah Tai Lagoon: trace the private mains with submersible pumps, confirm and quantify on waterfront near Point Hudson, locate. One crew, one visit, till toward Discovery Bay put back the way it was.

We've handled condo or HOA common area flooding near Hastings Avenue where the cause was copper on the Hastings Avenue grid, and near Cape George where sandy bluffs above the Strait was hiding a drain failure. A dedicated trip across the Hood Canal Bridge; we schedule Port Townsend so you aren't waiting a whole day.