Water Damage

Water Damage Restoration

When your home or business experiences water damage, you need to get things cleaned up quickly and thoroughly - to get back to life as soon as possible while avoiding the possibility of additional problems in your building or home in the future. Our expertly trained professionals are able to handle any type of restoration project, including large-scale floods, multi-story buildings, ware houses, and all other water damage clean up, restoration and reconstruction projects. We provide 24-hour emergency services 7 days a week, 365 days a year for all types of emergency situations, with the capabilities to get the job done quickly and efficiently to minimize both downtime and cost to your business.

Immediate Response to water damage in your home or business from leaky or broken pipes, storms and floods is necessary. This means within 24-48 HOURS all of the critical steps need to be taken if you want to maximize the chance of avoiding a costly cleanup project and to avoid mold growing.

• Stop the water entry. Salvage or protect furnishings or possessions which have not yet gotten wet by moving them to dry areas.
• Remove standing water - Use special pumping equipment to extract water.
• Remove wet carpets, furniture, contents, and boxes of wet stored items. Store items to be salvaged from the flooded area outside or in a garage, not in upper floors of the flooded building. Otherwise you may accidentally carry mold or other contaminants to other building areas.
• Remove floor trim and lower portions of walls (such as drywall or paneling) (at least 12") and any wall insulation, in rooms where the floors were wet or flooded. Porous materials like drywall or plaster which have been wet cannot effectively be cleaned and should be discarded.

How Much Drywall to Cut Off After Flooding or Water Damage:

If a floor was wet, even if water did not rise up the walls, we remove no less than the bottom 12" of drywall as well as any floorboard trim. Water on a floor surface enters and wets the wall cavity and often causes a significant but hidden problem mold reservoir in the wall cavity. If mold is visible on a drywall covered wall, we remove drywall to no less than 12" above any visible mold, including inspecting the wall cavity interior for visible mold.

• Remove upper portions of wall coverings (drywall or paneling) higher than 12" if these areas are wet, or if water entered the wall cavity from above.
• Remove ceilings that have been flooded from above, regardless of material such as plaster, drywall, or ceiling tiles. Suspended ceiling tiles which have been wet should also be discarded, and the remaining suspended ceiling tiles removed to permit inspection and drying as well as to inspect for evidence of water overhead.
• If mold is already visible or suspected, use containment to avoid air movement from the damaged (moldy) area to other building areas. Containment generally means negative air and poly plastic barriers are set up and other steps are taken to isolate a moldy or dusty work area from the rest of a building.
• Surface Cleaning: after rough demolition to remove wet and porous or visibly moldy materials and other items listed above, all remaining loose dirt and debris is removed, and the remaining exposed surfaces such as wall studs and framing, masonry walls, floors, plywood sheathing, is cleaned to remove all loose and surface debris.
• Surface Disinfection: after area flooding it is safe practice to assume that septic or sewage contaminants accompanied the floodwaters, so disinfection of all building surfaces is part of the cleaning process.
• Use dehumidifiers, fans, heaters, to dry the exposed building areas and surfaces.
• Inspect upper building areas and dry or ventilate them. Depending on weather conditions ventilation may mean simply opening windows or use of fans to dry an area. A building attic over a flooded basement is likely to have an excessive moisture level so that area needs inspection and may need venting too.

Damage to your home or business caused by storms, flood, water backup, plumbing leaks, broken or frozen pipes, or even raw sewage can be devastating to deal with and overwhelming.  In order to avoid having problems in the future from hidden damage, or the health hazards, such as mold, from an incomplete cleanup you need to be sure the job is done correctly by a trained professional.  Our expertly trained water damage professionals can handle any type of restoration and clean up project to your home or business.  We have the experience to get the job done properly to minimize the inconvenience to you and your family. 

There are few disasters that can happen in your home that are more terrible and hard to deal with than water damage. It can sneak up on you or hit you suddenly when you least expect it. No matter how it happens, it is always a difficult job to clean up after and the water damage can be subtle and long lasting.

It's not always obvious when water damage has happened because usually the source of the water damage problem is a broken or leaky pipe hidden behind the drywall or under the concrete slab of your house. And unfortunately, leaking pipes take a long time to show up, especially if the leak is a slow leak.  And by the time water spots or sagging ceiling tiles start to show, the water damage to your home can be extensive.

Call AAA Emergency Services immediately @ 513-769-0555 if you have water damage in your home or business.