How reliable is the water supply in Puerto Vallarta? Are there water disruptions?
Armando Contreras - Galvan Real Estate and Services
The water supply in the main towns in the Puerto Vallarta area is almost always perfect.However, in some of the smaller towns where the holding tanks are not as large, the water supply can run low during peak visitor weeks such as Christmas, New Years and Semana Santa (Easter).
Relative to the safety of drinking the water in the Puerto Vallarta area, I always recommend buying bottled water to drink. The water here is fine for cooking, making coffee and things...
The water supply in the main towns in the Puerto Vallarta area is almost always perfect.However, in some of the smaller towns where the holding tanks are not as large, the water supply can run low during peak visitor weeks such as Christmas, New Years and Semana Santa (Easter).
Relative to the safety of drinking the water in the Puerto Vallarta area, I always recommend buying bottled water to drink. The water here is fine for cooking, making coffee and things like that, but bottled is best for drinking.
(SEAPAL Water company in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted January 30, 2016
David Schwendeman - Mexlend
The water supply in Puerto Vallarta is very reliable. We’ve been here for nearly 13 years and never had a long-term issue with water. Occasionally, the city does work on the pipes and they will shut off the supply for a couple hours during the day, but this does not happen often and written notice is typically provided in advance. Most average-sized homes in Puerto Vallarta have a “tinaco” which is a container that holds a few days-worth...
The water supply in Puerto Vallarta is very reliable. We’ve been here for nearly 13 years and never had a long-term issue with water. Occasionally, the city does work on the pipes and they will shut off the supply for a couple hours during the day, but this does not happen often and written notice is typically provided in advance. Most average-sized homes in Puerto Vallarta have a “tinaco” which is a container that holds a few days-worth of water. They sit on the roof and water gets pumped up from the city into it. Having a tinaco is a safeguard measure just in case the water would ever go out for a long time. Larger homes and condo buildings might also have a cistern of some kind, which is an underground container, which holds a lot more water than a tinaco.
Our home is fairly large and happens to have two tinacos, one for each of the buildings on the property.
Never in 13 years has the water been off for more than 4 or 5 hours. It’s a once or twice a year occurrence at most. And even then the reserve supply in the tinacos has proven more than enough to see us through.
(Pictured: diagram of how a tinaco delivers water throughout the house.)
Posted May 29, 2016
Zaide Brambila
We do not have many issues with water in the Puerto Vallarta area. The most that you would pay for your water supply would be about 5,000 pesos ($273) for the whole year. Houses in the Puerto Vallarta area usually have tinacos (water cisterns). People have tinacos as a precautionary measure in case the town doesn’t supply water or if there is a water interruption. The town supplies the water for about 3 to 5 hours every day. You can then fill your...
We do not have many issues with water in the Puerto Vallarta area. The most that you would pay for your water supply would be about 5,000 pesos ($273) for the whole year. Houses in the Puerto Vallarta area usually have tinacos (water cisterns). People have tinacos as a precautionary measure in case the town doesn’t supply water or if there is a water interruption. The town supplies the water for about 3 to 5 hours every day. You can then fill your tinacos with water and that would be enough supply for your house for the rest of the day. A big tinaco would have enough water in it to last up to 2 days or a whole week, depending on how much you use water in your house.
Water interruptions sometimes happen in Sayulita (about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta, where I’m from) but not in Puerto Vallarta. The longest that we didn’t have water here in Sayulita was 4 days. If you don’t have water and the tinaco is empty, we call the company that has the big trucks of water and that can supply up to 10,000 liters of water to your house. They fill up your tinacos and other containers such as drums that you might have where you can store water.
(Pictured: Home with a pool in Sayulita, Nayarit, Mexico.)
Posted September 19, 2016
Sheryl Novak - SOLutions Mexico Furniture Store
The water supply in Puerto Vallarta is very reliable. We really don’t have water disruptions here in Puerto Vallarta, so that’s not an issue here. Most of the condos and buildings in Puerto Vallarta have holding tanks for water called “tinacos.” Tinacos make sure that even if there is a water disruption, you will still have enough water supply until a repair is done. I have been living in Puerto Vallarta for 8 years and have...
The water supply in Puerto Vallarta is very reliable. We really don’t have water disruptions here in Puerto Vallarta, so that’s not an issue here. Most of the condos and buildings in Puerto Vallarta have holding tanks for water called “tinacos.” Tinacos make sure that even if there is a water disruption, you will still have enough water supply until a repair is done. I have been living in Puerto Vallarta for 8 years and have never had issues with having no water. In our condominium we have a holding tank where water sits, and then it’s drawn into the condos based on the use in each unit. There have been times when maybe the pressure was not full, but I’ve never had an issue where I did not have any water whatsoever.
In the event of a water interruption, like when the line running from the water company to the holding tank in our property is cut, damaged, or leaks, the water supply is then cut off, we have enough water in the holding tank to service the needs of the building. The holding tank is obviously large enough that there haven’t been any periods of time where we didn’t have access to water. Also, we’re always alerted when there are any issues and told not to have excessive showers. I could count on my hand the number of times that that has happened in 8 years- it really hasn’t been an issue.
Most of the condominiums and smaller buildings here in Puerto Vallarta have holding tanks for water up on the roof of the building, so that the water is pumped in and there’s always a reserve.
(Installing tinacos on the roof, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted February 12, 2017
Paul Mayer - Vallarta Food Tours
The water supply in Puerto Vallarta is very reliable. In fact, I’ve never experienced water disruptions before. I live in a house on a newer development where the water supply is underground. We just get our regular city water and don’t have our own water storage. There hasn’t been a time when the water supply went out, and we’ve been there for two years.
(Food and drink, the michelada, sampled with the...
The water supply in Puerto Vallarta is very reliable. In fact, I’ve never experienced water disruptions before. I live in a house on a newer development where the water supply is underground. We just get our regular city water and don’t have our own water storage. There hasn’t been a time when the water supply went out, and we’ve been there for two years.
(Food and drink, the michelada, sampled with the Vallarta Food Tour, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted March 26, 2017
Peter F Gordon, MD - Lake Medical Group
Water disruptions are unusual in Puerto Vallarta. I first came to Mexico 40 years ago. It was unusual to see the water disrupted for no reason, but sometimes they would disrupt the water because they were working on something. Back then, we didn't have bottled water like we do now. Nowadays, Mexico has one of the best water companies that is at par with anywhere else in the world. They're on top of what's going on all the time, whether it's a tropical storm or...
Water disruptions are unusual in Puerto Vallarta. I first came to Mexico 40 years ago. It was unusual to see the water disrupted for no reason, but sometimes they would disrupt the water because they were working on something. Back then, we didn't have bottled water like we do now. Nowadays, Mexico has one of the best water companies that is at par with anywhere else in the world. They're on top of what's going on all the time, whether it's a tropical storm or flooding. Every once in a while, they're working on a water line and they'll let us know. When this happens, water may not come into the house for half a day.
In Mexico, there are back up water systems. There are water storage tanks on the ground and on the roofs. Water supply from these systems would be more than enough during the time when the water company needs to work on a pipe or something else.
In the past year, the water company in Puerto Vallarta disrupted the water supply only once and it hasn't affected us at all.
The quality of the water in Puerto Vallarta is drinkable, but we're used to not drinking it. The bacteria content is a little bit higher than what we're used to and might upset the stomachs of some people. However, water in Puerto Vallarta is safe to drink. A lot of people would put a stone filter on their water lines in the house and that's enough to drink the water.
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There's no problem to use the water in Puerto Vallarta for cooking, showering, and brushing teeth. We've gotten used to drinking bottled water, but I used to drink stone filtered water all the time and we had no problems.
(Stone water filter in the house of the artist, Diego Rivera, pictured. )
Posted October 6, 2017