Recent Water Damage Posts
Responding to a Water Disaster at Home | SERVPRO of West Milwaukee
9/18/2023 (Permalink)
If you discover water damage in your home or business, call SERVPRO of West Milwaukee right away.
Water plays an incredible and vital role in our lives, and oftentimes we don’t even think twice about it on a daily basis. It is constantly flowing behind our walls and through our pipes to help us cook dinner, wash the dog and clean the dishes.
While we certainly rely on the ease of access to water in our daily lives, that access also increases our risk of experiencing water damage. Busted water heaters, leaky appliances and flooding in your home during a severe summer storm can all impact your house in a big way. These strong storms in the Milwaukee area can cause chaos in a moment’s notice.
Even though it is ideal to avoid water damage altogether if you can, sometimes that is just not possible. Thankfully, SERVPRO® of West Milwaukee is here to help you recover quickly and efficiently.
The First Thing to DoIf you come upon a water disaster or damage situation, the first thing to do is to act quickly to stop the flow of water. Water could have leaked and seeped throughout a large area of your home by the time you discover the problem, so stop it at the source to stop it from getting any worse.
If the water situation was caused by an appliance malfunction or burst pipe, turn off the water valve and shut off electricity to the area. If the leak was caused by damage during a storm, you may just have to set out a bucket to catch the dripping until the storm passes and you can investigate further.
Remember, standing water has the potential to be really dangerous, so don’t walk through it if you don’t have to. Live electrical wires or sharp objects could be lurking beneath the surface. After that, pick up the phone and call us for immediate assistance!
Our Efficient Drying ProcessWe will start crafting your recovery plan from the minute you call us. Our team will ask a lot of questions, and we will probably ask you to take a few photos of the damage. These fresh images help us work directly with your insurance company to ensure the easiest insurance claims process possible.
Once we arrive at your home, a few things happen at once. We locate the source of the leak and get to work repairing the damage and drying up the excess water with air movers and industrial blowers. We will also work on removing your soft and fragile possessions from the area. We always try to restore rather than replace your items, so we will work on drying out everything we can as safely as possible.
Now that everything is dry, we will clean, sanitize and deodorize the area before we start on the repairs. Our team is highly trained on different repairs and we can handle anything from a minor wall repair to an entire rebuild of your room or levels of your home.
Dealing with water in your home where it shouldn’t be is always frustrating, but we are here to make the recovery process smooth and easy. Call SERVPRO of West Milwaukee for a complete restoration day or night.
Do you have water damage in your home? Call us for fast and complete restoration.
The Hazards of a Flash Flood | SERVPRO of West Milwaukee
9/18/2023 (Permalink)
Summer storms affecting your property? Call SERVPRO of West Milwaukee to restore your space in no time!
We all know and love those classic summer rainstorms that allow us to slow down and rest inside as the rain falls. It can be refreshing to watch our community calm down and watch our gardens and lawns get a much-needed drink!
However, we also know that not all storms are like this. Serious thunderstorms can blow into town quickly and bring heavy rain, strong winds and even damaging hail. While we are grateful that our homes can withstand moderate storm conditions, sometimes the rain can be intense enough to leak into our homes.
Our SERVPRO® of West Milwaukee team wants you to stay as safe and dry no matter what is going on outside, so read our tips for preparing for intense rain below.
The Possibility of Intense RainWhen the rain falls hard enough, it can cause the nearby lakes, rivers and streams to overflow. We are grateful to be a bit farther removed from Lake Michigan in these instances, but any sort of low-lying area can be negatively impacted by heavy rain, which can cause flooding really easily.
While we unfortunately cannot prevent this type of situation, we can certainly prepare for it! Staying connected to the local authorities and taking action quickly as soon as a flood watch or warning is issued can help you be ready when the rain starts to fall.
How to Stay SafeHead for home right away to start preparing. Your family’s safety and your home should always be your top priority. Avoid drainage ditches or any roads that you know tend to flood when it rains. Move things around in your garage so you can pull your outdoor equipment and cars inside, and tidy up your yard. Secure things like your propane tanks or lawn furniture so they don’t get swept away by any moving water.
If you know that your home is prone to flooding, move anything fragile or soft out of your lowest level and consider turning off the breakers to those rooms to be on the safe side. When the rain starts to fall and the water starts flowing into your home, stay high above the water line and don’t panic. Eventually the water will stop rushing in and then you can call us right away.
Things to Do in the FutureEven if you do your best to prepare, weather has a mind of its own and it can leave you with some significant damage. In each instance you can learn something, though! For example, if you find that your basement always gets wet during a heavy rain, it may indicate an issue with your property. Getting it professionally graded can stop this problem for good if the rain has somewhere else to go other than backward into your foundation.
Another investment that can pay off in a big way is a sump pump. Sump pumps are able to pull any excess water away from your basement and pump it back up to the surface, where it flows down a gutter-like system. This can come in handy in any rain situation to keep your basement nice and dry.
Remember, our team is dedicated to helping our community when flood conditions are present. Pick up the phone and call SERVPRO of West Milwaukee for immediate restoration assistance!
We are here for all of your water disasters. Contact us day or night for a quick recovery.
Detecting Water Leaks Around Your Home | SERVPRO® of West Milwaukee
5/9/2023 (Permalink)
Think you may have water damage in your home? Here are some tips from SERVPRO of Rapid City to find the source.
If you have ever suffered water damage before, you know how frustrating it is to deal with. Regardless of whether the situation was widespread or contained to a single room, water damage has the potential to be really costly and troublesome to many homeowners.
Because of water damage’s destructive qualities, it is important to recognize where water leaks often start and to take action right away when you notice one in your Milwaukee area home.
Read on to learn about the top three locations for water damage below.
Your roof. Your roof has an important job of keeping your family safe and dry, but sometimes that process can get interrupted by roof damage or a small water leak.
Since we aren’t up on our roofs often, it can be easy to miss the signs until it is too late and you are left with damage.
If a leak goes unaddressed, it can slowly seep into the ceilings, walls and floors of your home and cause hidden chaos. This water has a hard time drying out on its own, which can lead to mildew and mold problems.
In your bathroom. Another common space is your bathroom areas. Water is constantly flowing in and out of your sinks, tubs, toilets and showers, making water damage here very common.
In order to stop water from becoming an issue in your bathroom, be proactive about checking your water lines and the seals around your fixtures. It is also important to dry out your space each day so that water and moisture cannot linger and cause water damage this way.
The best way to catch water damage in your bathroom is to investigate issues quickly. It can be hard to see a puddle on the ground and assume it was from one of your kids being messy, but do your due diligence and investigate further to be sure.
Your pesky appliances. We love having appliances like dishwashers, washing machines and fridges in our homes! It certainly makes life easier, but only when they are working properly. Any sort of leak or malfunction has the potential to flood or cause widespread water issues in your home.
Similarly with your bathroom, investigate puddled water quickly and check for moisture often around your appliances. It can be extremely helpful to pull them away from the wall to check for water spots or mold growth as well, which indicates a water leak somewhere.
Finally, do your best to only keep new or reliable appliances in your home. Older or worn-out appliances increase your risk of suffering a water catastrophe with every day they get older.
Remember, even if you do your best to avoid water damage, it can still happen. Our SERVPRO of West Milwaukee team is always here to help.
Dealing with a water emergency? Our SERVPRO specialists can be on the scene of the disaster ASAP to restore your water-damaged home!
SERVPRO Is Your A-to-Z Water Damage Restoration Team | SERVPRO® of West Milwaukee
1/22/2022 (Permalink)
When water damage strikes, make the call to SERVPRO of West Milwaukee for A-to-Z cleanup and restoration.
Thousands of times a day—14,000, to be precise, a homeowner’s domain is infiltrated by an invasion of unwanted water, whether through appliance failure, flooding or some other malfunction.
You probably know by now that SERVPRO can handle the cleanup and recovery after some such mess, but do you know how? Today’s the day to learn.
Emergency Contact. Our first conversation will consist mostly of us asking you some questions that will helpfully guide us through the incident and help us formulate a customized plan for the necessary cleanup and restoration. Then we’ll head over to your place.
Inspection and Water Damage Assessment. Once the SERVPRO team arrives on site, we’ll look over the property and get a feel for the damage to complete our plan. Then we’ll inform you of anything we see that we estimate to be beyond restoration, and we’ll make sure you’re aware of any on-site hazards resulting from the aquatic intrusion.
Water Removal. That water doesn’t stand a chance. Our powerful pumps will gulp down gallons and gallons of the stuff before it even knows what hit it. Depending on your scenario, there could be multiplied hundreds of gallons that need removal, and we’ll do it more efficiently than you could imagine.
Damaged Material Removal. Once water removal is done, we can remove the items and materials that are going to be replaced. You don’t want them sitting around soaking the place anyway.
Cleaning, Sanitizing and Deodorization. When water comes in, it brings stains and smells that you don’t want sticking around. We’ll use a combination of specially formulated products, high-tech equipment and time-tested methods to see to it that this important aspect of restoration is handled thoroughly.
Drying. The water is gone, but excess moisture in the air and on surfaces can cause Mold if your home isn’t properly dried. We’ll use high-powered HEPA vacuums and other equipment to restore the proper moisture level of your home.
Monitoring. You’ll get regular contact from our specialists during the drying process, so we can be sure everything is drying well and that our equipment is performing at optimal levels.
Repairs and Construction. Finally, we’ll be hard at work restoring damaged areas of your home, going so far as to fully reconstruct areas which have been hit hard. From the moment you call us to the moment we leave, we’ll treat your home with utmost care and leave the smallest possible footprint. You may never even remember we were here.
When water damage strikes, make the call to SERVPRO for A-to-Z cleanup and restoration. We’ll make your damaged property look "Like it never even happened."
You’ll Be Shocked by These Water Damage Numbers | SERVPRO® of West Milwaukee
12/22/2021 (Permalink)
If water damage catches you off-guard and leaves you all wet, you’ve got help on your side. Contact SERVPRO of West Milwaukee.
Like a team of heroes trying to hold a supervillain at bay, your pipes and drainage systems are the daily workhorses of your home, and they have the dual tasks of both transporting the water you need every day and keeping it from spewing, leaking or rushing all over your home.
Water damage can happen all too quickly, which is why keeping your plumbing and drainage systems well-equipped and maintained is an important part of preventing damage in your home.
We’ve put a few numbers together to give you an idea of the scope of water damage in the United States.
24. That’s the percentage of all U.S. home insurance claims that are water-related. That’s a quarter of all home insurance claims—almost 3,000,000 homes every year are damaged by water.
48. When water invades, the clock is ticking. You’ve got 48 hours to get rid of it and get your place dried out before mold starts growing.
98. Out of 100 homes with basements, this is the number of them that will experience water damage of some kind in said basement. This one’s simply hard to avoid—blame gravity and underground moisture.
10,234. When the water heater bursts or a flood brings water rising inside, this is the expected cost associated with the insurance claim. You may get away with less, but this is the average.
14,000. In the next minute, by average, there will be six water damage incidents across the country. That’s one every six seconds, for an average of an astonishing 14,000 per day.
13,000,000,000. All those zeroes are insurance companies crying—that’s how much money they’re shelling out every year to repair the damage done by water in homes across the U.S.
Shocking, right? But you don’t have to be part of these numbers. Everything you do to maintain, upgrade or otherwise strengthen your water system or protect your home from water damage is one more weight to tip the scale in your favor. Be vigilant, and we’ll hope with you that you can stay on the outside of these statistics.
If water damage catches you off guard and leaves you all wet, you’ve got help on your side. Contact SERVPRO to see how we can quickly and fully restore water damage to your home or business.
Where to Sleuth Out Signs of Impending Leaks | SERVPRO® of West Milwaukee
9/7/2021 (Permalink)
A water leak can turn into a big problem. Contact the SERVPRO of West Milwaukee team if you are dealing with any water damage.
It sure would be nice if water damage announced itself before it happened. If you could get an email or a text that said, “Hey, it’s your sump pump here; I’m feeling a little clogged and I’m thinking about backing up tomorrow,” that would make things a lot simpler.
Unfortunately, we don’t get detailed plans and updates from our water devices. But if you don’t mind doing some routine checking, you may be able to stave off or even fully prevent some instances of water damage at home.
Toilets. The flapper inside the tank and the valve seal under it are both common sources of leaks, and if the wax ring under the toilet itself happens to lose its seal, it can introduce some seriously gross (and toxic) leakage.
Appliances. Washing machines are notorious for going through water hoses every few years, and any appliance runs water through hoses or soft supply lines may develop similar issues. And when’s the last time you considered the age of your water heater? Don’t let replacement wait too long, or it could explode.
Clogged gutters. This one at least has a repeatable prevention method that you can control, even if you’d rather not spend an afternoon on a ladder. Gutter clogs can force water to seep into and under your roof, and send water running down your interior walls, weakening beams and ruining paint and drywall.
Roof damage. Your roof is like Atlas, holding the world on its shoulders. It takes a constant beating from the elements and local critters, and it holds on as long as it can. But eventually, it will show signs of wear, and left unchecked, that wear will allow water into your house.
Pipes. Indoor pipes can crack or burst for several reasons, from freezing to rust, and loose joints and high water pressure can allow hundreds of gallons per day to flow into your home. And always keep an eye on your water bill, because if tree roots encroach on your water lines, you may have no other way of noticing—that is, until you have a massive backup.
Blocked garbage disposals. Foods that soak up water can really gum up the works and cause blockages in your sink, and excessive or hard plunging to remove those clogs can cause your p-trap to break free if joints are loose.
If a water leak erupts into a big problem at home, you’ve got the best team in the business on your side. Contact SERVPRO today so we can get started.
The Tokens of Basement Water Damage | SERVPRO® of West Milwaukee
5/28/2021 (Permalink)
SERVPRO of West Milwaukee is a full restoration company. Our restoration experts are on call and ready to help you determine the best course of action
Basements can be one of the most useful parts of a home. If you have a larger family, it can be a great place for kids to play while you get some peace and quiet upstairs.
As kids grow, it could be living space. You could use it for a home office or gym, and of course basements make pretty good storm shelters in a pinch.
However, many people who have owned a house with a basement can tell you the tale of the Achilles heel of basements—water damage.
Sure, it’s not an absolute lock that you’ll encounter a water emergency, but it’s one of the most common home insurance claims, so it’s in your interest to know both the risks and the warning signs. Let’s take a look at the things you’re most likely to see if water is becoming a problem downstairs.
Common Indicators of Moisture or Leakage in the Basement
Unpleasant, musky odors. Water that leaks into your basement doesn’t have to be dirty water or sewage to cause a problem. Even clean water will start to sour as it sits and soaks into surfaces, eventually producing the musty smell that arises when mold and mildew are present in the environment. You may not yet see mold on your walls or ceiling, but if you smell the aroma, it’s already there and you’ve got moisture somewhere.
Flaking paint on masonry or walls. If the paint is cracking, bubbling or otherwise contorting, you have a water issue somewhere. Even so-called waterproof paint sometimes used on cinder block walls won’t keep moisture out for long, and if you’ve got a leak or moisture from the surrounding soil, you’ll eventually see the disruptions in the paint.
Foundational cracks. It’s true that houses do shift over a number of years, but cracks in the foundation are not common, and they mustn’t be ignored. You may first notice cracks in the floor, the ceiling or in your walls, a sign that the house is exhibiting signs of pressure that could be caused by a compromised foundation. If you see any cracks inside that are larger than a hairline, call for professional diagnosis.
If you notice any of these signs in your basement, let us take a look. Our expert water restoration technicians can help you determine what is causing these issues and how to treat it properly. Contact us today to learn more.
Save Time and Money By Choosing Restoration | SERVPRO® of West Milwaukee
11/5/2020 (Permalink)
Have you sustained property damage and feeling overwhelmed? We are here to help, contact SERVPRO of West Milwaukee
Save Time and Money By Choosing Restoration | SERVPRO® of Southeast Waukesha County/West Franklin
While any type of damage to your home can be difficult to experience and recover from, if you have damage due to an emergency event, there can be many emotional hurdles on the road to recovery. Events like fire, floods and severe weather can have a long-lasting impact, but fortunately, we are here to make the recovery process as easy as possible for our customers.
We have helped hundreds of local residents with the recovery process, and we have the tools and expertise to help you, too. We perform every job with a restoration-first mindset, meaning that we will do everything we can to restore your home and belongings to their pre-damaged state instead of liquidating your property and recommending expensive replacements.
Why We Do Every Job With a Restoration-First Mindset
We can help you save money on your insurance. Many homeowners will be relieved to discover that most types of damage can generally be claimed with insurance, but this can be quite pricey depending on the cost of your claim and the rise in your premium. With a restoration-first mindset, we can keep your overall insurance claim lower, reducing the amount that your premium get raised.
We can protect your sentimental items. In any sort of disaster scenario, keeping your family safe is the most important thing—and when you have to evacuate to do this, you may be leaving some extremely sentimental items behind. We understand that some things could never be replaced, which is why we have invested in restoration technology to make salvaging these items possible even after severe damage.
We make sure your home feels like home again. It is emotional to return home after the restoration has been completed, and can be disheartening if the recovery is not what you had envisioned in your head. Because we handle all the cosmetic touches and keep your belongings where they belong, we aim to make your first trip through your front door a positive one after you have experienced so much.
If you have damages and are feeling overwhelmed, we are here to help. You can call us as soon as you need to in order to begin the restoration process. Contact us today to learn more.
Winter is coming
10/28/2019 (Permalink)
With snow flurries in the forecast, it’s time to start thinking about preparing our homes for those cold snowy winter months. This past winter we experienced some of the coldest temperatures that we’ve seen in several years. Regardless of what Mother Nature decides to bring this year, there are some preventative measures we can take as homeowners and business owners to prevent our pipes from bursting.
When a pipe freezes, a lot of pressure is created and can cause it to burst, which can lead to serious flooding, especially if no one is home to turn off the water. Your best bet is to keep your water supply pipes warm and above freezing. Here are a few ways that you can do that:
- Keep your heat on-If you are leaving for a long period of time, you should keep your thermostat at 50 degrees or higher.
- If you have concerns that your pipes may freeze, open the faucet slightly and let it drip. This helps relieve pressure in the system.
- Open interior doors-Often times pipes are in cabinets. Opening those cabinet doors can help allow the heat in your home to keep the pipes warm.
- Make sure cracks and holes are sealed-If there are any gaps around holes where pipes run through walls or floors, make sure to seal those with caulk or spray foam insulation. Seal both the interior and exterior if possible.
- Add additional insulation-If you have pipes in areas that are not properly insulated, adding some extra insulation will go a long way. Basements and attics would be a good example of areas that may be in need of more insulation.
Worst case scenario, if you do experience a burst pipe in your home or business, call SERVPRO of West Milwaukee. We’ve handled dozens of calls just like this and we will get your home back to its preloss condition as soon as possible. You can trust us to take care of your home as if it were our own.
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