So, perhaps you woke up and heard it in the middle of the night. Maybe you came home after a long day at work and discovered the floors are soaked. Before we get any further, if you have a burst pipe locate your main water shut off valve and stop the water supply. Secondly, if you haven’t already, call a plumber so they can locate the leak and make the necessary emergency repairs to the broke pipe.
But now what? Everything is wet and you don’t know where to begin cleaning up this mess. Your first instinct is probably to call your insurance provider, in hopes that they can guide you through the process. While this is a necessary step in the repair process, you should if not first, also immediately contact a water restoration professional to work and advocate on your behalf. (read why this is imperative by clicking here and reading our blog post: YOUR INSURANCE ADJUSTER ISN'T YOUR ENEMY, BUT THEY CERTAINLY AREN'T YOUR FRIEND)
Even the smallest amount of water left to sit idle can cause tremendous damage over the long term, so it’s important to act fast! The longer you wait, the more costly the repair process becomes. While it may help to slow things down, most of the time just mopping up the excess visible water won’t prevent further damage. Water, especially from a burst pipe or a roof leak, will permeate the construction materials used to build your home, and find its way into the smallest of crevices. From there it will absorb into almost every material your home is made from. This is where the first major part of the repair process begins: Water Mitigation.
The entire purpose of Water Mitigation is to prevent further damage. This work is performed by certified professionals, like us, that use state-of-the-art techniques and equipment to properly assess the damages and begin the process of extracting not only excess water, but ambient water too. We use special commercial grade heaters, extractors and dehumidifiers to draw the water and moisture out of the framing of your home. Some materials, like insulation and drywall for example, can not be saved. They must be also be removed in order to excavate wet areas and expose the damaged or wet materials behind them. This is a delicate process that must be heavily documented and coordinated with the homeowner and the insurance provider. Once all the unsalvageable materials are removed from the site, the area is then quarantined off and allowed to dry for several days. After this step, the area and materials are then carefully inspected to make sure everything is dry enough to begin putting the home back together. Which leads us to the next step: Reconstruction / Restoration
Now that the Water Mitigation has been completed, it’s time for the restoration to begin. This process should also be done by a highly rated industry professionals who not only understands home construction, but who also specializes in Insurance Claims. There is special documentation that must be considered, and a careful series of steps that must be followed in order to ensure that the repair process will not only go smoothly, but minimize the costs involved. More often than not, water damage tends to effect only certain walls, or rooms. To bring a home back to pre-loss condition there are a lot of variables to consider in advance so that the final results yield a home that looks like damage had never occurred in the first place, i.e. color matching and material matching / blending etc. This is imperative due to the fact that most policies only cover specifically the damaged areas, so they will need to be repaired so that the final result blends into the rest of the home seamlessly. Not only is the highly skilled labor a tremendous part of water restoration process, but the specialized experience of the management involved is equally crucial. They will over see every aspect of the repair process from start to finish, and coordinate the necessary steps so that they are performed to industry standards, and completed expeditiously. Every thing from paperwork and documentation, to coordination of multiple skilled labors and acting as a liaison on behalf of a home owner when communicating to the insurance provider, which if done effectively will minimize or sometimes even eliminate out-of-pocket-costs to the homeowner.
When it comes to repairing a home from something as catastrophic as water damage, the dollar values involved are usually tremendously expensive. There is a lot of room for error along the way if the people performing the repairs are not specialized in water damage restoration. It’s important to hire highly qualified individuals that are capable of putting your home back together, and orchestrating all the necessary moving pieces that are involved like overseeing the insurance claims process, paperwork, water mitigation, restoration, and the pack-out of the contents that occupy a home. While a water damage event can be an expensive and highly stressful time for a homeowner, a great restoration expert will minimize the stress, prevent further delays and hiccups, and seamlessly put a home back together in a little time as possible, while still allowing for quality work to be performed.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have water damage - time is of the essence, don’t delay.
BURST PIPE / ROOF LEAKS