Heating, cooling and plumbing in Hickory Creek’s. Serving North Texas since 1980.
Hickory Creek grew about 46% between 2020 and 2025, which makes it one of the fastest-growing towns in Denton County by percentage. The median home here now dates to around 2014 and the median value sits above $500,000.
But the town is not uniformly new. Hickory Creek incorporated in the early 1960s, and its original subdivisions sit alongside five-acre estate lots and, more recently, its first multifamily. Three different kinds of building in a town of under five square miles.
The other thing that sets Hickory Creek apart is its building code. The town adopted the 2021 International Codes in June 2024 with a set of local amendments that are unusually specific about exactly the work we do.
Most towns adopt the model codes and leave it there. Hickory Creek wrote amendments that directly govern water heater placement and gas piping, and they are stricter than the base code.
Fuel-fired water heaters are prohibited in storage closets, and installations in or near bedrooms and bathrooms require a sealed enclosure. Gas piping has to be buried at least 18 inches rather than the 12 inches the base code allows. CSST carrying medium pressure requires identification tags, valves need support within 12 inches of the valve center, and pressure testing has to be done with calibrated diaphragm gauges. Exhaust above 400 CFM triggers a makeup air requirement.
None of that is exotic, but it does mean a quote built on general North Texas assumptions can be wrong here. It also means a water heater sitting in a closet in an older Hickory Creek house may not be able to go back where it came from.
This is the split that matters most for plumbing. The developed core is on municipal sewer collected by Lake Cities MUA and treated regionally. But the Town of Hickory Creek also issues its own on-site sewage facility permits, because parts of town are on septic.
Steeplechase South, for example, sits on five-acre-plus lots. A home on acreage here may be on a septic system with its own maintenance requirements, its own failure modes, and its own permit path through the town rather than the county.
If you are not certain which you are on, that is worth establishing before a drain problem turns into a diagnostic argument.
The original subdivisions — Shore Haven, Lakeview, Glenview — date to the town's early decades. Steeplechase dates to 1997. Then Steeplechase South homes were built 2015 to 2021 at 2,700 to 4,700 square feet on five-acre lots, alongside newer developments like The Enclave and Shadow Creek Estates.
A 1960s house and a 2019 custom on five acres are not the same service call, and they are four minutes apart.
Hickory Creek shares its water utility with Lake Dallas and Shady Shores: Lake Cities Municipal Utility Authority, buying treated surface water sourced through Upper Trinity Regional Water District from Lewisville Lake, Lake Ray Roberts and Jim Chapman Lake.
On water hardness: LCMUA does not publish a grains-per-gallon figure, so we will not quote one. Be careful with numbers you find online — there is a "Hickory Creek Special Utility District" in Hunt County, entirely unrelated to this town, and its water report does not describe your water. If you need a real number, ask LCMUA for a current analysis.
Cooling season runs April into October with long stretches above 100. On the 2014-and-newer stock that means equipment now entering its first real repair window; on the older core it means systems well past replacement age.
We handle AC repair and emergency AC repair throughout 75065, and quote AC installation off a load calculation. On the larger Steeplechase South homes, that calculation matters more than usual — a 4,000-square-foot house with a two-story volume and a lot of glass is not a candidate for rule-of-thumb sizing.
Spring AC maintenance is what keeps a weak capacitor from failing on the first 100-degree afternoon.
Winters are short and that is the problem. Equipment sits idle from March to November, then a front drops through and every furnace in the Lake Cities fires for the first time in half a year on the same evening.
We cover furnace repair, emergency heating repair and furnace installation. Given the town's gas piping amendments, any heating work that touches the gas side here gets done to the local standard, not the generic one.
Book the tune-up on your heating system in October rather than December.
Our plumbers run the same Lake Cities route as our HVAC techs, so dispatch can often handle both problems on one visit.
This is where Hickory Creek's amendments bite hardest. A fuel-fired water heater cannot sit in a storage closet here, and installations in or adjacent to bedrooms and bathrooms need a sealed enclosure.
In practice that means some older homes cannot simply take a like-for-like replacement in the original location. The answer is usually a relocation, a sealed-combustion unit, or a different configuration — and it is much better to find that out during the quote than on install day.
We handle water heater repair, water heater replacement and water heater maintenance, and install tankless water heaters where gas supply and venting support it. Whole-home water filtration and softening should be sized off an actual analysis.
Hickory Creek has been under more or less continuous construction for years, and the dust load is real. On newer large homes the more common complaint is not dust but balance — a two-story with an undersized return that starves a perfectly good system.
If rooms never even out regardless of thermostat setting, the issue is usually distribution, and that is duct repair work. Indoor air quality equipment handles what filtration alone cannot.
| Build era | Where you see it | What tends to come due |
|---|---|---|
| 1960s–1980s | Shore Haven, Lakeview, Glenview and the original core | Second or third system replacement, water heaters that can no longer go back in the original closet, aging sewer line |
| 1990s–2000s | Steeplechase (1997) and surrounding additions | Full HVAC replacement, third water heater, original slab plumbing at fatigue point |
| 2015–2021 | Steeplechase South, Shadow Creek Estates, The Enclave | First real repair window, zoning and balance issues in large two-story homes, septic maintenance on acreage |
| 2022–present | Ongoing construction and The Mansions multifamily | Warranty-period maintenance, builder punch items, softening and filtration added after the fact |
The Town of Hickory Creek permits and inspects through its Permitting and Code Compliance department, using a third-party inspector, with fire inspections handled by the Lake Cities Fire Department. Contractor registration is required. The town also issues its own on-site sewage facility permits for properties on septic.
Hickory Creek adopted the 2021 International Codes and the 2023 NEC in June 2024, with the local amendments described above. Water heater replacement, HVAC changeouts, gas line work and sewer work all require a permit. We pull it and meet the inspector as part of the job. Rite NOW holds Texas licenses TACLB28698E and M46294.
We cover all of Hickory Creek in ZIP code 75065, shared with Lake Dallas.
That includes Shore Haven, Lakeview, Glenview, Point Vista, Steeplechase and Steeplechase South, Shadow Creek Estates, The Enclave of Hickory Creek, Hickory Hills, Harbor Grove, Timberlake Estates and Waterview Estates, along with the acreage parcels and remaining family farms inside town limits.
From our Denton shop we also serve Lake Dallas, Shady Shores, Corinth, Highland Village, Oak Point and the rest of Denton County.
Our dispatch runs 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., seven days a week. Hickory Creek is about eight miles southeast of our Denton shop, which makes it one of the shorter runs we make.
Availability is seasonal. In mid-July and during the first hard freeze, everyone is triaging and no-cool and no-heat calls with vulnerable occupants go first. A maintenance membership moves you ahead of the general queue on those days.
Gas or carbon monoxide: if you smell gas or a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, get everyone out of the house first, then call 911 and Atmos Energy from outside. Contractors come after the hazard is cleared.
Hickory Creek's local amendments to the 2021 codes prohibit fuel-fired water heaters in storage closets and require a sealed enclosure for installations in or adjacent to bedrooms and bathrooms. If your existing unit predates those rules, a like-for-like replacement in the same spot may not pass inspection. The usual solutions are relocating the unit, switching to a sealed-combustion model, or reconfiguring the enclosure — and we work that out during the quote, not on install day.
Both exist in Hickory Creek. The developed core is on municipal sewer collected by Lake Cities MUA, while parts of town, particularly the larger acreage lots, are on septic. The Town issues its own on-site sewage facility permits, which is unusual — in most of Denton County septic permitting runs through the county, and only for unincorporated areas. If you are unsure which you have, we can confirm it on the first visit.
Lake Cities Municipal Utility Authority does not publish a hardness figure, so we do not quote one. Be careful searching online: there is an unrelated "Hickory Creek Special Utility District" in Hunt County whose water report describes completely different water. For a real number for softener or filtration sizing, request a current analysis from LCMUA.
Yes. The town's amendments require a minimum 18-inch burial depth for gas piping, where the base code allows 12. There are also local requirements for CSST identification tags on medium-pressure runs, valve support within 12 inches of the valve center, and pressure testing with calibrated diaphragm gauges. It is worth confirming any gas quote you receive was written to Hickory Creek's standard rather than a generic one.
Several things. The run from the house to the septic tank and drain field is long, which makes a camera inspection far more useful than guesswork when drains slow down. Larger homes on these lots also tend to need real load calculations and often zoning rather than a single system. And septic maintenance is an ongoing obligation rather than something you think about only when it backs up.
Rite NOW AC, Heating & Plumbing has worked North Texas homes since 1980, and we do Hickory Creek work to Hickory Creek's code — not a generic North Texas standard.
Check current specials before you book. Done Rite, Done Now.
