Relaxation?

4/23/2019 (Permalink)

Imagine you are away on vacation, relieving the stress from normal everyday life. When you return home, you walk in to water pouring from your ceiling! This happens more than one would think.

Here are a few tips you should consider before leaving:

• Turn off your water valve. 
• Turn off your gas. 

Discovering your home has suffered from water damage from flooding, a busted pipe, roof leak or a sump pump backup is not fun, extremely inconvenient and the water damage will quickly become your worst enemy. It’s important that you act swiftly and promptly after making a water loss discovery to help minimize the damage.

A fast response time is essential. This will help to reduce wicking into porous materials and secondary damage to other contents surrounding the affected damaged area. Additionally, a fast response will help to minimize the potential for mold and mildew growth and can cut costs in the long run.

Aside from notifying your insurance agent of the damage, contact SERVPRO of Columbia, Montour & Sullivan Counties. After you’ve contacted SERVPRO, there are a few things you can do before the restoration professionals arrive to help get the restoration process moving faster. Here are some tips and things to do to help prepare:

• Watch for slips and falls.
• Make temporary repairs to protect your home or business from further or other damage.
• Make sure source of loss is fixed (sump pump, broken water line, hot water heater, etc.)
• If water came from overhead, make sure to stay away from those areas, as the ceiling could collapse.
• Remove any artwork from the affected area.
• Make sure wooden furniture is removed from the affected area or wooden blocks, plastic bags, or aluminum foil is placed under the legs.
• Make sure that colored rugs are removed from the affected area, so that extra staining does not occur to the carpet
• Remove fragile pieces from the affected area.
• If it is the summer, keep the AC unit running as this helps eliminate some of the humidity.
• Finally, things that are wet can be very heavy so be careful!

Remember that with any water loss situation, your fast reaction time to stopping the source of water loss from continuing and getting the right people for job onsite ASAP is crucial to limiting water damage and even cost.