GOT WATER DAMAGE? HERE'S WHEN & WHY YOU NEED A SPECIALIST

3/16/2016 (Permalink)

HOW TO CHOSE A WATER DAMAGE SPECIALIST

The thing about being a water damage and repair specialist is that no one seems to care about what you do until they desperately need your help. What is it a restoration expert does and when and why someone would need to hire one. Here’s what SERVPRO of Palm Desert has to say.

What exactly does a water damage and repair specialist do?

“What we do is we save people tens of thousands of dollars,” “Because if you have water running all over your carpets and through your walls and you don’t dry it in under 48 hours, you’re possibly going to get mold and excessive damage.”

Basically what SERVPRO of Palm Desert does is come into your home after you’ve had major water damage of some kind, whether it’s a broken pipe, build up in a crawl space, or flooding from a natural disaster.

Why is it important to call a professional?

Water damage can be fast and it can be dramatic. If you call quickly enough, the SERVPRO team can get in there, get everything dried up, prevent damage like warped floors, cracking sheet rock, etc. and get your life back to normal within three or four days. “But if it turns to mold, then everything has to be properly contained, the air has to be tested, and suddenly you have a huge demolition project on your hands.”

There is a special protocol for cleaning up sewage; you can’t just wipe it up. If it touches anything porous, you have to cut it out and dispose of it and you need to be doing that while wearing Personal Protection Equipment (basically a hazmat suit). After all, sewage water can contain bacteria that can get you and your entire family really sick. The thing is, you may actually not even realize that your water damage is sewage, but if you have a broken pipe below your sink and there are three or four months of potato peels under your house, that’s considered hazardous waste. SERVPRO has trained technicians who will come in with state-of-the-art equipment to handle all of the clean up making it possible for the homeowner to live in their home safely again.

What are the most common problems water damage specialists see?

SERVPRO of Palm Desert sees a lot of water damage caused by human carelessness, like the dad who flushed a diaper down the toilet not once, but twice, or the woman who threw a towel that knocked a faucet on and then went out to lunch for three hours while her entire house flooded. But there’s also the other kind of damage, which is caused by pipes breaking or a toilet overflowing and going unnoticed. And sometimes pipes that break do so in places that are totally out of sight, so no one even realizes until they smell the one or two feet of sewage that’s been building up under the house.

Regardless of how or why the damage occurs though, it’s important to bring in a professional to fix it because if you don’t dry a space out properly, you can easily end up spending thousands and thousands of dollars after the fact.

When should I call a water damage specialist?

SERVPRO of Palm Desert says a plumber fixes the problem; a water damage specialist helps clean it up. You want to get a professional in as quickly as possible to minimize permanent damage, so even if you can only get the water source shut off, it’s okay to go ahead and call.

How much will it cost?

One of the things homeowner’s ask first is “How much will this cost? It can be shocking to hear and understand why a water damage emergency call is so expensive. However the secondary damage to a home by leaving the water damage for a few days without taking care of it can be multiplied several times with more secondary damage happening to the home like mold.

SERVPRO of Palm Desert will come out to assess the damage and help our customer with the process of estimating the loss and help them through the insurance claim process to make it easier for them.

Again though, what’s most important is to get a reputable professional company who can get there as fast as possible. The longer the water sits there, the more it’s going to move up the walls or down the hallways, and the more the water moves, the more it’s going to cost.

What should I do while I’m waiting for the specialist to arrive?

If it’s safe to do so, turn off power outlets and appliances near or in the flooded areas. Make sure the water source is turned off and then remove anything on the floor, including wet rugs if you can. You’ll also want to mop up as much water as possible to keep it from spreading. This is also the time to move art or valuables to a safe, dry place.