By the Census, Arlington’s owner-occupied homes are the oldest of any county or city in Northern Virginia, the median one built in 1960, and the historic districts in Lyon Park, Cherrydale, Penrose and Maywood date from the 1880s into the 1950s. Expect galvanized steel somewhere in the supply of a house that age and cast iron under the basement slab, with newer copper or PEX wherever somebody has already opened a wall.
When a drain backs up here, the first call is the County’s, not ours. Arlington checks its own main and clears it at no charge if the blockage is there, so you only pay a plumber once you know the problem is on your side, somewhere in the lateral between the house and the street. That’s when a camera down the line earns its keep.
Heavy rain is the other Arlington backup, for the old-drain reason the County gives below, and Arlington’s rain comes hard. The Weather Service logged Columbia Pike at South Greenbrier Street closed by high water in September 2021, August 2023 and June 2025, and a July 2023 storm needed rescue boats at South Joyce Street and Army Navy Drive. If a floor drain bubbled or the basement got wet in one of those, call us once the rain stops: the floor drains, the lateral, the sump pump and the water heater all get a look, and any repair is priced before it starts.
We do more work through landlords and property managers in Arlington than in almost any other town, so condo buildings, tenant scheduling and access rules are routine for us there. One Arlington wrinkle for owners: a tenant who applies for a plumbing permit needs a letter from the owner, not the management company, and an owner can hold a residential permit on just one address every two years.