alan "plasticman" toothman's folly, shenandoah county, va.

stony pointe
strasburg, va
an alan "plasticman" toothman development

• drainage & grading by Rube Goldberg
• alan "plasticman" toothman attaches flexible plastic pipe to downspouts, installs it oblivious to grade (up & down like a rollercoaster), and buries the outlet end against the back of the sidewalk. what?!?
  

BRILLIANT!!!
there are actually two pipes here

the one on the right is completely buried
what?!?

• this causes a washout onto my neighbor's driveway 
  

alan "plasticman" toothman says "not my fault". 
what?!?

BRILLIANT!!!

• toothman ignores his approved grading plan. instead of the swale shown on the approved grading plan...

...there's a hill
what?!?

BRILLIANT!!!

•  Shenandoah County building inspectors fail to notice the building code violation that calls for sloping the ground away from foundation walls down 5% for 10 ft.* what?!? how does one not see a hill where there's supposed to be a swale?   

* section R401.3 of virginia residential building code CHAPTER 4 FOUNDATIONS | 2012 Virginia Residential Code | ICC publicACCESS 

BRILLIANT!!!

• ours and our neighbor's crawl spaces are flooded because of toothman's hill. the shenandoah county building official "reaches out" to alan "plasticman" toothman for a solution. what?!? alan "plasticman" toothman recommends flexible plastic pipe (what else would one expect?!?)--instead of the 10 ft. wide and 6" deep graded downslope called for in the building code. the shenandoah county building official approves it! 

what?!?
BRILLIANT!!! 

• my recommendation to the shenandoah county building official is for him to require alan "plasticman" toothman to slope the ground away from the foundation walls, down 5%, for a minimum of 10 ft.--exactly as the building code requires. the shenandoah county building official rejects my recommendation. 

what?!?
BRILLIANT!!!

• DON'T expect shenandoah county building inspectors to find building code violations during construction.
• DON'T expect shenandoah county's building official to enforce the building code when violations are found.
• DON'T buy an alan "plasticman" toothman house!

footnote: the shenandoah county building official lied to us. he said that he was going to send a notice of violation to the builder--then, he didn't. instead, he "reached out" (his words) to the builder. the builder came up with a "fix"--flexible plastic pipe and a french drain--in lieu of sloping the ground away from the foundation walls at -5% for a minimum of 10 ft. needless to say, a french drain and flexible plastic pipe aren't the same as the sloped ground that the building code specifies. nevertheless, the shenandoah county building official approved it. 

virginia
shenandoah county
strasburg
stony pointe
toothman