Our hot Las Vegas summer has ARRIVED and we know that no one looks forward to the high heat. When temperatures reach over 100 degrees, the only thing you want to do is stay inside, and try and stay cool. We often forget that the heat not only affects us but it is hard on our plumbing. You may notice more leaks and drips and this is more common for any valves and fixtures exposed to direct sun light and extreme temperatures. If you have anything outside exposed to the sun and heat, the best thing you can do is wrap it with flexible pipe insulation, this is available at most hardware stores and will protect pipes and valves from the powerful UV, and during the winter will do double duty by protecting exposed pipes from low temperatures. Since its going to be hot for awhile now, it's safe to assume you wont be taking as many hot showers now or at least as hot as you do in the winter. To help extend the life of your water heater turn down the set temperature you want it to reach, this will make your heater work less and not expose the valves and other components to high temps.
Now another issue that plagues us all year is hard water. The hard water in Las Vegas is so bad that it can cause fixtures to prematurely fail, and overall will decrease the expected life span of the products and fixtures in our homes. The problem here is that when you mix in the extreme heat with the hard water it can increase your odds for a failure especially on older fixtures and appliances. Since we can't make sure that every single appliance and fixture in our home is kept in a cool place the best thing to do is work on the hard water issue. There are numerous options and we have gone over some in a separate post, but the main thing to consider when getting a water softening system is what purpose will your water softener serve for you. This will help you come to a small list of solutions that would work best for you.
Lastly and we can't stress this enough but more so in the summer, but look into installing a reverse osmosis unit at your home. When it is hot outside we drink more water especially if we will be spending more time outside. Rather than buying cases and cases of water you can install an RO. It does have a higher upfront cost but over the course of a few years will save you money on buying water, this is especially true for bigger families as water consumption is much higher.