Arlington's buildings, from towers to bungalows
Arlington is a county, not a city, and it has no incorporated towns inside it. The county government provides local services everywhere, and "Arlington, VA" is simply the mailing name for the whole of it. At about twenty-six square miles, it's one of the smallest counties in the country and one of the most densely built, just across the river from Washington, D.C., with Metro lines running through it.
Its housing falls into a few clear groups. High-rise condominiums and apartment towers line the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor above the Orange and Silver lines, and Crystal City along the Blue and Yellow lines, many of them built from the 1960s onward, with newer towers still going up. Garden apartment complexes, two to four stories of brick around courtyards, date from the 1930s and 1940s in places like Buckingham and Colonial Village and continued to be built through the postwar years, especially along Columbia Pike. Many have since become condominiums.
Single-family neighborhoods fill much of the rest: pre-war bungalows, foursquares and brick Colonials in places like Lyon Park, Ashton Heights and Cherrydale, and mid-century brick houses across North Arlington and around Columbia Pike. Most of these have basements, many of them finished, and some have been expanded or rebuilt. Townhouse communities fill the gaps. Almost everything is on public water and sewer, and more than half of Arlington households rent.
That means the person calling about water is often not the owner of the pipe that failed. It may be the tenant downstairs, the condo owner two floors below, the property manager, the building engineer or a landlord who lives in another state. This page is written for all of them.
Unit owner or downstairs neighbor, we'll explain what happens next.
Call About Your CondoHigh-rise leaks: stacks, chases and units several floors down
In a tower, units are stacked on top of one another, and their kitchens and bathrooms usually line up, served by vertical risers and drain stacks inside shared chases. When a supply line fails in one unit, water follows the easiest route down: along the riser, through the chase, around pipe penetrations in the concrete slab, and into the ceilings of the units below. It can travel several floors before it shows, and the units it reaches may not be directly under the source.
So the first job is tracing it. The building engineer usually knows which risers serve which units and where the valves are. The crew checks ceilings and walls on each affected floor with moisture meters and a thermal camera, working upward until the readings stop, to find the source and the full extent. A drain stack problem adds another layer, because water from a drain is treated as contaminated wherever it lands.
Drying a multi-floor loss is also a logistics job. Equipment moves between floors by service elevator, which usually has to be booked and padded. Corridors and lobbies need floor protection. Buildings often set quiet hours and rules about equipment running overnight in occupied units. The crew plans around all of that with the manager and engineer before bringing machines in.
Tell us the riser and floors; we'll plan around your valves and lifts.
Building Engineer? Call Our LineCast-iron drain stacks in older buildings and houses
The garden apartments of the 1930s and 1940s, many mid-century towers and most pre-war and mid-century houses in Arlington have cast-iron drain lines: the vertical stacks that carry waste down through the building and the horizontal lines under the lowest floor. Cast iron lasts a long time, but after sixty to ninety years it corrodes from the inside, and it tends to crack along the bottom of horizontal runs, where water sits.
The signs are easy to miss. A sewer smell in a basement or lower-level unit with no obvious cause. A stain that spreads slowly on a ceiling below a bathroom. Water pooling near a floor drain or cleanout. In a garden apartment building, a failing stack can wet the walls of several units along the same line at once.
A plumber can run a camera through the line to see its condition. Water that leaked from a drain is treated as contaminated, so porous materials it soaked are removed, and surfaces are cleaned and disinfected before drying. In a condominium, the association and its plumber usually decide how shared stacks are repaired, so let the management office know as soon as a stack is suspected.
Garden-level units: water from above and outside
Arlington has a great many garden-level units: the lowest floor of a garden apartment or condo building, set partly below ground, with windows at or just above the grass and often a patio door onto a sunken terrace. They get water from every direction. From above, a leak in any unit in the stack can end up in their ceiling or down their walls. From outside, heavy rain can overwhelm a window well or a terrace drain, and saturated soil can push water through the wall where it meets the slab.
Their floors often sit directly on concrete, with carpet, laminate or vinyl plank laid over it, and their walls may be furred out from the foundation. Water gets under flooring and behind those walls quickly, and dries slowly.
A careful check tells the two apart: readings at the ceiling and upper walls point to a unit above; readings concentrated low on exterior walls, after rain, point to groundwater. The occupant, the unit owner and the management office all need to know which it is, because the fix for water from above is inside the building, and the fix for water from outside is drainage around it.
Who is responsible for a loss in a shared building, and whose insurance applies, depends entirely on the specific policies, governing documents and circumstances. We explain the physical side: where the water went, what access is needed and who usually needs to be told. For everything else, ask your association and your own insurer.
One contact for access, scheduling and records across affected units.
Managing a Building? Call UsAlso near Arlington
Arlington is part of our Arlington & Alexandria service area. Neighboring pages cover the City of Alexandria and the City of Falls Church, both independent cities, and McLean in Fairfax County.
Arlington service area
We connect residents, owners, landlords, managers and building engineers across all ten Arlington ZIP codes: Rosslyn and the Courthouse and Clarendon area (22209 and 22201), Ballston and the surrounding neighborhoods (22203), North Arlington (22205, 22207 and 22213), South Arlington and Columbia Pike (22204 and 22206), Crystal City (22202), and 22214. Traffic and building access both affect timing here, so we'll tell you honestly on the phone when a crew can arrive, and we'll need the building's access rules.
ZIP codes served: 22201, 22202, 22203, 22204, 22205, 22206, 22207, 22209, 22213 and 22214
Services for Arlington buildings and homes
- Condo & Shared-Building Water Damage
- High-Rise Water Damage Restoration
- Multi-Unit & Apartment Water Damage
- Ceiling Water Damage Repair
- Sewage Backup Cleanup
- Rental Property Water Damage
Approve by phone; we'll coordinate entry with your tenant and the building.
Landlord? Call From Wherever You AreArlington water damage questions
Water is coming into our garden-level unit. Is it from above or from outside?
Watch where and when it appears. Water at the ceiling or high on the walls, whatever the weather, points to a unit above. Water along the foot of an outside wall or under a window after rain points to groundwater or a blocked terrace drain. Tell the management office either way, and the crew can confirm with moisture readings.
I'm on the board of a mid-rise condo. What should we have ready before the next leak?
A current map of risers and valves, and who can operate them after hours. A way to reach every unit owner and tenant quickly. A clear procedure for entering a unit when nobody is home. Where equipment can be staged. Having those settled makes the first hour of any leak far quicker.
The owner upstairs isn't home. How does anyone get in?
Most managed buildings have a procedure for emergency entry, often through the management office, concierge or building engineer, sometimes with a key on file. Call them first. If nobody can get in, the engineer may be able to close a valve on the riser that serves that unit.
Should the building shut off the whole riser?
Only if the leak can't be stopped closer to the source. Many buildings have branch valves for each unit or floor, which stop the leak without cutting water to everyone else on the riser. The building engineer decides, based on the building's own valve layout.
Our 1940s house has galvanized pipes. Is that a problem?
Galvanized steel supply pipes corrode from the inside over decades, which narrows them and eventually causes leaks at threads and joints. Low water pressure and rusty water are the early signs. A plumber can check how much remains and whether it's time to replace it.
Does my tenant need to be home for the work?
Not always. With your approval and the tenant's agreement, the crew can arrange entry through building management or a lockbox. The first visit usually goes better with someone there to show where the water is, but later monitoring visits often don't need anyone present.
What happens to wet insulation in the walls or ceiling?
Fiberglass batts hold water against the framing and rarely dry well in place, so they're usually removed once the wall or ceiling is opened, then replaced after the cavity reads dry. In concrete high-rises there's often less insulation to deal with, but the drywall and its framing still need checking.
Where is the water shut-off in an Arlington condo?
Often inside the unit: under the kitchen sink, in a utility closet with the water heater, or behind an access panel in a bathroom. In some older buildings, shut-offs are in a hallway closet or controlled only by the building engineer. Find yours, and ask management if you can't.
My sump pump is running, but the basement still got water. Why?
In an Arlington house, the pump may not keep up in a long storm, its discharge may be blocked or empty too close to the house, or water may be coming in somewhere the pit doesn't reach, such as an old window well or an areaway door. The crew can help work out which.