5 Tips For When Water Damages Your Home

Water damage is one of the most challenging things to deal with in your home. The risk to your home is enormous too; you can suffer from a total property loss and this can eat into your ability to prosper as well as to protect your family. Water damage can be a literal killer and also a great destructor of your home value. If water damages your home then use these five tips to repair your home quickly and alleviate the risk to your loved ones.

1) Stop the Water Immediately

The first step with any form of water damage is to stop the water damage as quickly as possible. This often requires you to find the water valve shutoff in situations where the water damage is from a pipe burst or something similar that stems from your internal home. If the water damage is from the outside then you may have more of a challenge, particularly because the damage may be due to a storm or river surge. Sandbags can help to redirect the

2) Eliminate the Electrical Power

Electricity and water do not mix. If there’s water damage, particularly salt water damage, then you should kill the electricity in your home as soon as you can possibly do so as it puts your home at immediate risk for fires and total property loss. Have flashlights and other tools handy such as emergency power generators to capitalize on your electrical system to whatever extent that you can while your main power is out. Wait until the risk of fire is minimized before turning the electricity back on.

3) Contact Your Home Insurer

Once you have addressed your immediate problem you should contact your home insurer. If you don’t have home insurance you will need to take the lead here but if you have a loan with your bank as a mortgage they typically require home insurance. Contact them and have them send their own representative to inspect the space and deploy the resources to restore your home. They will determine an overall cost for the repair, deduct the deductible from this amount, and then will send you a check for the difference. They may direct you to the contractors they feel comfortable with but won’t require you to use them. Instead of waiting for funds you should immediately start to reach out to contractors to help with the restoration process as quickly as you can.

4) Consult with Water Damage Restoration Professionals

Water damage restoration professionals will quickly dry the area using high powered fans and sprays that inhibit the growth of mold in the home. From here they will provide advice on major repairs needed such as updates and fixes to your electrical system if it was buried in water. They will do the restoration that they specialize in and you may need to use others to perform other forms of home renovation like patching up drywall and changing furniture.

5) Prevent Future Water Damage Potentialities

When water damage is not caused by acts of god you may want to pursue home improvements to reduce the changes for future water damage. Some examples of fixes include installing rain barriers, French drain systems, and repairing cracks in your homes foundation and brick work. These can help to solve the underlying problem and reduce the possibility of future water damage.

Water damage can be a huge drain for a homeowner. By undertaking the above solutions then you can minimize your home damage from water problems and start to put your life back together after your flood of burst pipe.