How To Hire A Professional Home Water Damage Restoration Company

Here’s Everything You Need To Know About A Water Damage Restoration Company & Restoring Your Property Back To Normal

Water damage can start in a matter of seconds and become severe within minutes, hours or days. Home or commercial property owners should contact a water damage restoration company as soon as they notice water dripping or accumulating. The remediation process typically begins with an assessment and estimate and continues through water damage mitigation and restoration.

What Is Water Damage Restoration (Remediation)?

Restoring water damage usually calls for extracting standing water, cleaning the affected area, and either drying or tearing out and replacing damp or saturated building materials and contents. Except in the case of minor damage that can be quickly fixed and thoroughly dried, damage cleanup and restoration should be undertaken by trained professionals. Restoration and remediation services have access to pumps for extracting large amounts of water and debris as well as a full range of cleaning and drying equipment.

Water Damage Typical Causes

Three of the most common sources of water damage include damaged roofing, faulty plumbing fixtures, or leaky appliances. Restoration professionals categorize the severity of water damage based on the level of contamination.

• Category One water damage results when clean water leaks from a broken pipe or supply line.
• Category Two damage involves contaminated, non-potable gray water from a leaky appliance, bath, shower, toilet, or a roof that may contain chemicals and microbes.
• Category Three incidents involve highly contaminated flood water or sewer backups that may contain solid waste.

What Are the Signs of Water Damage?

Puddles or pools of standing water and dripping surfaces are obvious indications of ongoing water damage. A musty odor suggests that a structural leak is causing hidden mold to flourish behind the walls.

Why Is Water Damage So Dangerous?

Standing water poses may health and safety risks. In addition to being an ideal environment for potentially harmful bacteria and fungi to multiply and spread, water also poses slip and fall risks. For these reasons, it is advisable to hire water damage restoration professionals with extensive experience and equipment suitable for extracting standing water, cleaning and drying a damaged structure.

What Precautions You Can Take

Home and commercial property owners and managers should be aware of the age of plumbing and the materials used. Regular inspections of pipes and appliances can help to avoid costly damage and repairs, as will checking the condition of a roof after high winds or storms that could tear off shingles and other building materials.

What Can You Do About a Flooded Attic or Basement?

Unless you have access to the right pumps and know how to monitor and equalize interior and exterior pressure on a structure, you may want to limit your mitigation and cleanup effort to contacting skilled professionals. Local or regional restoration services have the tools and training to get the job done as quickly as possible without risking lasting structural damage.

What To Do When You Have an Immediate Emergency Flood?

Contact a restoration company like (United Water Restoration Group), as soon as you see signs of flooding. You should receive a call back within a matter of minutes, depending on the number of homes and businesses that are affected. Leading services advertise a call-back time of fifteen minutes or less and arrival on-site within an hour. Make sure to choose a remediation service recognized for efficient emergency response.

When To Call a Water Damage Restoration Company

If there is more water present in a structure than you can remove with towels and a mop or wet vac, it is a good idea to seek expert help. Even if you think you may be able to handle the amount of water that is currently dripping or standing, residual moisture can lead to mold.

Investing in complete water damage cleanup as soon as the damage occurs may be more cost-effective than getting surprised by major secondary damage that is excluded from coverage under most standard homeowners and commercial property insurance policies.

Water Damage Restoration Process

The restoration process starts with a careful inspection of the causes, degree, and extent of the damage. Restoration experts should provide an estimate of costs anticipated for cleanup and rebuilding.

Before you attempt to clean, repair or remove any wet building materials or contents, you should thoroughly document the damage in photographs and videos. Listing losses and gathering receipts or other purchase information may make an insurer more likely to cover a water damage claim.

Next, trained experts recommend eliminating as many effects of damage as possible. This phase is called mitigation because it should improve conditions and limit the severity of the damage. Extraction and cleanup should ideally start within 24 hours, and rebuilding can commence as soon as the cause and primary effects of water damage have been resolved.

Water Damage Assessment

Property owners may be able to take pictures or record videos that represent the condition of a building interior and exterior, but extensive experience is necessary to accurately assess the costs of damage. Assessment begins in a damage report and continues through the callback and on-site inspection before concluding with the calculation of an estimate.

Water Damage Restoration Tools

It may be possible to rent commercial- or industrial-grade cleanup and drying equipment, from water pumps and wet vacs to air movers and dehumidifiers. Home and commercial property owners may not know how to select tools that can eliminate every trace of damage as quickly as possible. You may save time and money and avoid stress by hiring a professional restoration service with access to all of the equipment necessary to completely restore the interior and exterior of any structure.

How Is Water Removal Different for Commercial and Residential Properties?

Major distinctions between water damage at a commercial and a residential property involve the size and plumbing systems in a structure and the number of occupants in a structure. Commercial property owners must account for the safety of employees, customers or clients, or run a heightened risk of liability. It may be necessary to file an interruption insurance claim to offset ongoing expenses or the costs of temporary relocation.

Water Damage Remediation Process

Restoration work is intended to address particular forms of primary and secondary damage. The term “remediation” may be used to describe a more comprehensive cleanup and rebuilding effort. Remediation may involve content restoration, mold testing, and the removal and replacement of ruined building materials.

How Much Does It Cost To Clean Up Water Damage?

The cost of home water damage restoration can range from several hundred dollars up to thousands of dollars for repairing extensive damage resulting from flood conditions. Property owners should do everything that they can to ensure that the majority of mitigation, restoration, and remediation costs are covered under a homeowners or commercial property policy, endorsement, or rider.

Why Work With United Water Restoration Group?

In the event of a water emergency, United Water Restoration Group responds in as little as fifteen minutes and can arrive on-site within an hour. Our headquarters is located in Ormond Beach, FL, but we can help home and commercial property owners in any state or province find a Water Damage Restoration Company.

Enter your postal code on our home page or give us a call toll-free at 1-800-430-5838 to report damage and start the mitigation and restoration process today. We specialize in damage restoration and also offer mold testing and remediation services.