Water Damage, Restoration, Prevention And Understanding

Learn about water damage, prevention and restoration.

Understanding water damage is the first step in prevention and restoration. It might be tempting to try and find some kind of band-aid remedy for water in the basement, black mold or mildew in the ceiling. This approach will simply not work, however. <br>Solving water problems and damage can be a bit like detective work, you have to follow leads and pursue different scenarios before you discover the culprit. This can be very frustrating at times because water can be rather sneaky.<br>For example: you might have water stains on the ceiling. Naturally you assume that the source must be directly or nearly directly above the stains. A trip to the attic reveals, however, that there is no water at all in that area. Further investigating shows that rain water is dripping from a roof rafter. You trace the stains all the way down the line until you find that a nail holding a shingle is leaking. It is surprising to find that the nail is 15 feet from the ceiling stains!<br>One time I heard an interview with a woman who had moved to rural New York state from the city. She and her husband bought an old inn and were restoring it so they could rent out rooms and such. For two years they had a leaky ceiling in the parlor and could not figure out what the source was. Almost comically, it turns out that she did not understand that the shower curtain had to be on the inside of the shower/tub to keep water from leaking out!<br>A friend of mine has a house that had a veritable stream running through the cellar. The tenant was a contractor/carpenter who told her he was working on fixing the water damage. When I looked at it, all he had done was paint some green waterproofing floor paint on some rotten boards. After I showed her, she still said he was taking care of it! Eventually she opened her eyes to what was right in front of her, and did something about it. <br>The project was quite involved, much more than some basement floor paint, for sure. We had to put in French drains around the perimeter of the house, add a basement sump pump, replace all the wood in the cellar, run fans for days at a time to dry it out, and change the grade of the surrounding yard to prevent more water from draining into the basement. <br>She was reluctant to do all this because of the expense, naturally. Yet, had she continued to neglect this, the house would have become inhabitable, due to the terrible effects of mold and mildew. The mold spores in that house could make anyone ill.<br>Water damage is serious, and nothing to ignore. If you do not have personal experience and are not really that willing to understand how to solve the problems, deal with the prevention and restoration, hire a professional. These guys do this everyday for a living and have seen just about everything.

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