When faulty plumbing, overflowing bathtubs, leaky roofs, or heavy rains flood your home with water, they may ruin basements, ceilings, floors, and furniture. Water causes rust, mold, mildew, stains, warping, and structural damage. Here’s some advice to lessen the impact of leaks or flooding before a water damage restoration crew arrives.

Do:

Call your insurer and take pictures.

Reach out to your insurance company to advise them of what’s happened. Also, call a reliable provider of water damage restoration services. If you use your smartphone to take photos and videos of the damage, you’ll have the evidence you need when filing an insurance claim.

Clean up what’s possible.

If safe, rescue valuables and move them to a dry area. Putting soaked documents in the freezer will keep them from mildewing. Later, you can slowly dry them to recover their contents.

Next, use mops, buckets, rags, and sponges to clear away as much standing water as possible while you wait for the professionals to take over.

Ventilate the area.

In the summer, open doors and windows and turn on the air conditioner. If you have fans, position them to keep the air in wet rooms circulating. In the winter, use fans and your furnace for ventilation, and crack open doors and windows to increase airflow if you can do so without lowering the indoor temperature too much.

Don’t:

Take risks.

If floors are wet, don’t turn on electrical appliances. If your attached garage has flooded, for example, don’t plug in a Shop-Vac® to vacuum away the liquid. Also, don’t stand under sagging ceilings, which present a safety hazard.

Stack wet clothing and rugs on top of one another.

To prevent mold and mildew from forming, hang fabrics and textiles up or lay them out to dry separately. Both mold and mildew will continue to spread as long as your fabrics and textiles are wet. This can cause respiratory problems, so it’s important to act quickly to limit their effect.  

Treat sewage.

If the standing water in your home is polluted with sewage, leave it to the professionals to dry and sanitize the area. Don’t enter a basement flooded with sewage. You may expose yourself to contamination and disease.

Staying in a water-damaged home could be hazardous to your health if a sewer line has backed up. Instead, arrange to stay with nearby friends or family or book a room at a motel until water damage restoration is complete.

Contact the water damage restoration specialists at Superior Carpet Care & Restoration if your home or business in Texarkana, TX, is flooded. Their IICRC-certified technicians will evaluate the damage and present you with sensible solutions. Visit them online to learn more about their mold remediation and restoration services or call 903-319-7854 to make an appointment for an inspection.