Water Damage Restoration in Irving, Texas

Irving’s size and history

Irving is a big city by Dallas County standards. The Census Bureau’s ACS 2024 one-year estimate lists about 258,000 residents across roughly 67 square miles. The Handbook of Texas dates the townsite to a lot auction on December 19, 1903, records that residents voted to incorporate in 1914, and says population rose from 2,615 in 1950 to 45,895 in 1960 and 100,996 in 1970. It adds that the Las Colinas planned residential and business community began on the city’s north side in the 1970s, announced in 1973 as a joint venture after plans for D/FW Airport were revealed, and that the city today is home to thousands of businesses and several Fortune 500 headquarters. A city that grew that fast, in that many phases, contains very different conditions from one end to the other.

What the census says about the buildings in Irving

The five-year ACS counts 102,512 housing units in Irving with a median year built of 1986. About 39% of units are single-family detached houses; roughly 48 percent are in buildings of five or more units and about 14% in buildings of 50 or more. About 62% of occupied units are renter-occupied, second only to Addison among this site’s service areas. About a quarter of the housing was built before 1970. The result is a city where most water losses involve a renter, a landlord or a property manager, and where a large share of buildings are old enough that original water heaters and supply connections have long since been replaced.

For an Irving resident the practical consequence is notice. If you rent, tell the manager at once and photograph your unit; if you manage, find the shutoff for the building section and the affected units below before anything else. The notification sequence on the Addison page applies equally to Irving’s apartment and office buildings.

What the public record says about flood control in Irving

Irving sits along the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. Irving Flood Control District Section 3 was formed by the Texas Legislature in 1983 to remove the Valley Ranch area from the 100-year floodplain of the Elm Fork. The district says it began constructing the Valley Ranch levee in 1983, built a stormwater pump station and 5.5 miles of canals and ponds, and serves nearly 30,000 residents and businesses between Belt Line Road and LBJ Freeway. In a March 2024 post it says FEMA no longer classifies Valley Ranch as a 1 percent annual chance flood hazard and instead classifies it as an area with reduced flood risk due to the levee. The district’s own materials describe the pump station holding waterways at about 418 feet against a river near 404 feet.

Separately, the city has invested in drainage channels on Delaware Creek. City-sourced reporting dated February 2026 says Irving was awarded state financing and a grant from the Texas Water Development Board to accelerate upgrades to the Delaware Creek Channel, including excavation of about 10,000 linear feet of concrete channel lining, replacement of five concrete box culverts and relocation of utility lines, and that a further phase called North Delaware Creek Phase 2 was being prepared for a funding request. That article describes the improvements as planned; earlier news coverage from 2021 and 2022, which could not be re-read, described a channel project begun in 2016 to contain a 100-year flood and protect more than 350 structures. Confirm which phases are complete before citing any of this about a given neighborhood.

News reports also describe river flooding damaging parks along the Campion Trail, a roughly 22-mile greenbelt along the Elm and West forks, after heavy rain in 2015 and 2016, with closures again in 2020. Those are reports about public parks on the river, not about residential or commercial buildings.

Residential areas in Irving

Most residential water damage in a city this size is internal: supply lines, water heaters, appliances, HVAC condensate and roof leaks. Houses from the 1960s and 1970s often have older ceilings and layered flooring that behave differently from newer finishes; apartments from the 1980s and later often have stacked units and shared risers. Slab houses show leaks as damp flooring and baseboards, and pier-and-beam houses collect water under the floor. The water damage restoration page describes the process.

Commercial districts in Irving

Las Colinas and other business districts contain mid-rise and high-rise offices, hotels and corporate buildings. The key issues are those on the commercial page: shutoff, tenant notification, shared risers, ceiling plenums and electrical safety. Properties near DFW Airport are covered separately on the airport-area page.

Winter exposure in Irving

Cold-weather failures follow the regional pattern from the DFW normals. Apartment communities and older commercial buildings with plumbing in unheated areas face the most exposure, and vacant units are the usual place for a leak to run unnoticed. See frozen and burst pipe cleanup.

Irving local resources

• City of Irving, drainage and floodplain staff (irvingtx.gov).
• Irving Flood Control District Section 3, Valley Ranch levee, pump station and alert information (ifcd3.squarespace.com).
• FEMA Flood Map Service Center, mapped flood hazard areas.
• NCTCOG, regional stormwater and Elm Fork studies.