Stuart

Stuart is older and more attached than most people expect. Fewer than three in ten housing units in the city are detached single family homes, and the median build year is 1979. That number matters. Cast iron drain lines from the seventies do not fail at the fixture. They fail horizontally inside a slab or a wall after about forty years, and by the time a floor feels soft the material behind it has been wet a long time. Martin County caps buildings at four stories, so Hutchinson Island and downtown are low rise, but stacked units still share a riser and one failed line becomes three wet ceilings. Sewall's Point and Rocky Point sit on a peninsula with the St. Lucie River on one side and the Indian River Lagoon on the other, which means salt air from both directions and equipment that corrodes early. Crews dispatch from West Palm Beach, about forty five minutes south.