Montgomery County, home base.

Montgomery County covers a lot of ground and very little of it looks the same. The county seat is Norristown, the north and west run out into farmland and newer subdivisions, and the southeast corner (Lower Merion Township and the boroughs around it) is old, built-out suburb along the Main Line rail corridor. Loth & Son is based in that corner, and the route runs past most of those streets on a Tuesday.

The housing there is largely stone and stucco, a good deal of it a century old, on lots that were graded once when the house went up and have been settling ever since. Trees are mature, which means shade, roots under everything, and a heavy leaf load in November. Stone walks and walls have been in the ground long enough to move. So the jobs that come up are renovation and correction more often than new construction on bare ground: resetting what has sunk, taking water somewhere sensible, and renovating beds that were planted for a house that has since grown up around them.

The core route is Penn Valley, Merion Station and Wynnewood. Bala Cynwyd, Ardmore and Narberth are on it too. Each of those six has its own page below.