town house

Plumbing nightmares… pumpkin pulp!

Should I be flattered to be considered a voice for plumbers across America?

Well here is this week’s tip from Roto-Rooter Plumbing and Drain Service:

~ watch the pumpkin pulp and seeds ~

It seems that while we are enjoying pumpkin pies upstairs in the dining room with the family,  the pulp that we shoved down the garbage disposal is coating our sewer laterals waiting for more debris to catch. And then, typically on a weekend, clogging up and causing a dreaded back up in the basement. Yes, a plumbing nightmare!

Here are Roto-Rooter’s tips:

	Never put pumpkin pulp or seeds down the toilet, sink drain or in the garbage disposer. The stringy, sticky gunk hardens and clogs drains and disposers. Carve pumpkins on a thick bed of newspaper. Wrap up pumpkin-related materials and throw away in the garbage can or compost pile. Separate the seeds, then roast for a tasty treat. Or grow your own pumpkins by planting this year’s seeds early next spring.

town house

4587 Derring Lane, Fairfax Virginia can settle quickly!

NEW PRICE!… look at the interior photos! This home is not asking a 3rd party for approval! Not a foreclosure either… super clean and ready to settle by the end of the year!

Mint condition town home located close to Fair Oaks, Fairfax, and some of the best shopping on the East Coast including Wegman’s, Whole Foods, REI, Costco, Target and the Merrifield Garden Center. Walk to an almost new Fairfax County Elementary School (Eagle View), Fairfax County parks and walking trails and so much more.

3 level, rear load two-car garage, almost new condition. 3 bedrooms, 2 full and 2 half baths

All ready to close quickly. But we need to set up a time to see it this weekend… 703-304-6827.

Equal Housing Opportunity!

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town house

It’s Fire Prevention Week, Virginia!

It was a cold, late fall morning as I read the Washington Post about ten years ago. The Metro Section had an article about a couple escaping a burning home on Dominion Way in Falls Church…

I took a sip of coffee. “Dominion Way, don’t I have clients on that street?”, I thought.

“Right, I should call Scott and Jeannie to see if they saw it.”

So I hopped in my car and drove over to see which house it was. It was theirs!

Since then, I have reminded clients during National Fire Protection Week to check their smoke detectors, replace old smoke detectors with new ones that include hall lights, replace 9-volt batteries, make an escape plan, and be careful when grilling or using candles.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) supports all of those programs that your children learn in school or read about during those fire station open-houses… there is probably one in your community this weekend and you should stop by and get some fire safety tips or suggestions. Click on “Sparky” to see all of their material.

As it turned out, Scott and Jeannie were sound asleep at 2:30 in the morning when Jeannie smelled smoke. She sent Scott to peek out the window and he saw flames leaping up the side of their neighbor’s town home. They hopped out of bed and ran out of the house safely. I can clearly remember asking her about the experience and she did not remember hearing her smoke detectors going off.

Please do me a favor, check those smoke detector batteries, press the test button, and consider replacing any smoke detector that is over seven years old.

The Vienna Volunteer Fire Department open-house is October 10th from 10-4.

town house

Installing a real estate “for-sale” sign in Virginia?

Better call Miss Utility first!

Yes, that familiar RE/MAX Presidential sign in your front yard is going to require a bit more effort (and spray paint) to install. The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) is turning up the heat on enforcement of the Virginia Underground Utility Damage Prevention Act which was enacted thirty years ago, and the lowly real estate sign is a prime suspect.

At the heart of the Act is that natural gas lines into homes have been installed without a minimum depth requirement. To make matters worse, older lines may not be as deep due to settlement of the ground over the years allowing some lines to be only 4”to 6” below the surface of the lawn. And, since most utility easements are in the front of a home coming in from the street, they are in the exact spot that most agents stick their signs in the ground.

Anytime there are incidents of damage to underground lines they are photographed and used as examples. Some of the lines are so shallow that your average homeowner could easily put a shovel into the line when digging up a new spring flower garden. As you can see in this photo, the gas line is next to the front porch pillar and marked as a line found just 2 inches deep… heck, my kids could have found this one!

In my 18 years of selling homes in Northern Virginia, I have not heard of anyone hitting an underground utility line when placing a real estate sign in someone’s front yard. But on the other hand, I have not thought about hitting anything other than rocks as I have pushed my sign into the lawn of a client’s home. So maybe this raised awareness of this issue is a good idea before anyone else gets really injured.

The consequence of non-compliance may be a gas explosion or a $2,500 fine, whichever you consider to be worse. To add to my listing activity checklist or sequence of events, I am now going to call Miss Utility at 811 to come out and mark your property before I place a for-sale sign in your yard. The guidelines say that I need to call at least 48 hours, excluding weekends, before doing any sign placement so they can do their work marking up your yard with yellow and orange spray paint .

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