What to Do if You Discover Water Damage in Your Home

9/1/2022 (Permalink)

Here is what to do if your basement floods, roof leaks, or sewer backs up!

Water damage comes in many forms, when you first discover it you can be in a panic and not know what to do. Here are the first steps you should take if you discover a large water damage incident in your home.

Turn off the water.

It doesn’t matter how quickly you can clean up the existing water if you do not stop more from coming in. Find and close your home’s main water valve. Also turn off any circuit breakers to that area, to prevent an electrical shock.

Call your insurance provider.

Get in touch with your home insurance company and let them know you have had a water damage incident. They will open a claim and will schedule an adjuster to come assess the damage.

Call SERVPRO.

After you get the claim number from insurance, contact us so we can immediately send a technician to begin the mitigation process. With water damage, the sooner the excess water is removed and drying, the cheaper and quicker the process will be. Once you give us your insurance information, we can work with that provider to begin work.

Clean out any items that could be affected.

If water is in an area, it will continue to spread out and absorb into materials. Place furniture on wood blocks and remove boxes, clothes, or other items in the immediate area that could be damaged by water. Preventing further damage will save everyone time and money. If the water is contaminated by either sewer or wastewater, anything that it touches will need to be cleaned or replaced.

Discovering a water loss in your home can be scary, just follow these steps and you will be on your way to making it "Like it never even happened."