Falls Church, generation by generation
Falls Church is an independent city. It has belonged to no county since 1948, with its own government, schools and services, and it takes its name from the eighteenth-century church that still stands near its center. Arlington lies to the east; Fairfax County surrounds it on the other sides.
Before the 1940s
The city's oldest houses, from the late 1800s and early 1900s, are frame Victorians, foursquares and bungalows with plaster walls, hardwood floors and cellars or partial basements. Their plumbing has been updated in stages, and some still have sections of original drain line.
The 1940s and 1950s
Brick Cape Cods, ramblers and early split-levels filled in most of the residential streets. Many have basements finished decades later, and original cast-iron drains running under the lowest floor.
The newest buildings
Along Broad Street and Washington Street, mixed-use buildings with condominiums and apartments over shops have gone up in the last twenty years. These are shared buildings, managed by associations or property companies.
Four of the five Falls Church ZIP codes, 22041, 22042, 22043 and 22044, mostly cover Fairfax County neighborhoods such as Baileys Crossroads, Seven Corners, Lake Barcroft, Pimmit Hills and Idylwood, where mid-century subdivisions, garden apartments and high-rises are common. Only 22046 is mainly the city itself. We cover all of them.
We'll help you find the shut-off and tell who needs to know.
Call and We'll Walk You Through ItCast-iron drains under the older houses
Houses built before about 1970 in and around Falls Church usually drain through cast iron: a vertical stack and horizontal lines beneath the lowest floor running out to the sewer lateral. After seventy years or more, cast iron corrodes from the inside and wears thin along the bottom of the horizontal runs, where water sits. Joints loosen, and tree roots from the big old trees on these streets find their way into the lateral.
Trouble usually announces itself quietly: a sewer smell in the basement, a floor drain that gurgles or seeps, slow drains throughout the house, or a lower-level toilet that rises when the washer empties. A slow leak from a cracked horizontal run can wet the slab and the bottom of finished walls for weeks before anyone connects the dots.
A plumber can camera the line and say whether it needs clearing, lining or replacing. Water from a drain leak or backup is treated as contaminated, so wet carpet, pad and lower drywall are removed rather than dried, and surfaces are cleaned and disinfected.
Split-levels and half-buried lower levels
The city's 1950s streets and the Fairfax County subdivisions around it have many split-levels, where the lowest floor sits half below grade with the family room, laundry and water heater. Its outside walls are partly buried, and its windows sit in wells that fill in heavy rain.
Water finds this level from every direction: over a window well sill in a storm, through the joint where the wall meets the slab when the clay around the house is saturated, from a washer hose or water heater right beside carpeted living space, and down through the framing from a bathroom one flight up.
Drying usually means lifting the carpet and pad, taking out the lowest strip of wall paneling or drywall, and dehumidifying until slab and bottom plates read dry. Where the water came from outside, the lasting fix is outside too.
Old houses here tend to leak from below, through drains and cellar walls. New buildings tend to leak from above, through the unit upstairs. The first question on the phone is which one you have.
Plaster, hardwood or drywall, dried and checked with a meter.
Get Help Drying It OutBig trees, full gutters and window wells
Falls Church is a city of big trees, and every fall they fill gutters. A blocked gutter overflows along its length and drops a whole roof's worth of rain beside the foundation. A downspout that empties onto a splash block at the wall does the same in one spot, and on an older lot where the ground has settled toward the house over decades, that water runs straight to the basement.
Window wells are the other weak point. Their drains clog with leaves and soil, and in a downpour they fill like buckets until water comes over the sill. Older houses sometimes have downspouts tied into underground clay pipes that have long since clogged or broken, so water that seems to disappear is soaking the soil against the cellar wall.
Clean gutters after the leaves drop and again in spring, extend every downspout several feet onto ground that falls away, clear window well drains, and consider covers. Then walk the house in a heavy rain and watch where the water goes.
We'll give you honest timing, never a promise we can't keep.
Get a Crew Out TodayCommunities near Falls Church
Falls Church is part of our Arlington & Alexandria service area. Neighboring pages cover Arlington County and the City of Alexandria, and, in Fairfax County, McLean, Dunn Loring and Annandale.
Services for Falls Church homes and buildings
- Basement Water Damage
- Sewage Backup Cleanup
- Burst Pipe Water Damage
- Ceiling Water Damage Repair
- Condo & Shared-Building Water Damage
- Gutter & Drainage Water Intrusion
Crews who know the city's older houses and newer condos.
Ask a Local CrewFalls Church service area
We connect owners, tenants, landlords and associations across 22041, 22042, 22043, 22044 and 22046: the City of Falls Church and the surrounding Fairfax County neighborhoods that share its mailing name. Route 7 and Route 29 can be slow at busy times, so we'll give you honest timing when you call.
ZIP codes served: 22041, 22042, 22043, 22044 and 22046
Falls Church water damage questions
We live in Pimmit Hills with a Falls Church address. Are we in the city?
No. Pimmit Hills, like Idylwood, Lake Barcroft and Baileys Crossroads, is in Fairfax County, even though it uses a Falls Church mailing address. The independent city is much smaller. We cover both, and the practical steps after a leak are the same.
Water from the unit above reached our condo in a new Broad Street building. What happens first?
Tell the unit above and the management office so the source gets shut off, and take photos before anything is moved. Tracing and drying the water means getting into both units. Tell your own insurer and the association too.
Our older Falls Church home has plaster. Is it dried differently from drywall?
Plaster on wood lath holds water and dries slowly, but it can often be dried in place rather than torn out, especially after a short, clean-water leak. The crew monitors it with a meter and removes only sections that stay wet or come away from the lath.
Is a battery backup sump pump worth it for our Falls Church basement?
If your basement has a sump pit, often yes. The storms that fill the pit are the same ones that cut the power. A backup pump with a high-water alarm keeps working through an outage and warns you if water keeps rising.
Should each condo owner hire their own crew?
It usually works better with one coordinated plan across the affected units, so water is traced and dried in the right order. Each unit still gets its own readings, photos and records. The association and each owner's insurer can advise on how they want it handled.
Why does our Falls Church room still smell after it looks dry?
Something is usually still damp: carpet pad, the back of paneling, a bottom plate or subfloor. A musty smell means moisture is left somewhere. Meter readings find it, and drying or removing that material clears the smell.
Can I dry our Falls Church basement myself with fans?
Fans help surfaces, but water in framing, subfloor and under flooring needs dehumidification and time. In humid weather, fans alone mostly move damp air around. Readings show whether the hidden layers are dry.
With so many old trees in Falls Church, why do gutters matter for the basement?
Under big trees, gutters fill fast. When they overflow, roof water lands right at the foundation, and on older lots it runs straight to the basement wall. Clean gutters and longer downspouts prevent a lot of repeat basement water.
What happens when the crew arrives at our Falls Church house?
They look at the source and the damage, take moisture readings to map how far the water has spread, and explain the scope and price before starting. Next comes extraction, removal of anything that won't dry, and the drying setup.