The First Step of Water Damage Restoration

7/9/2021 (Permalink)

Every single water damage restoration job is different. That’s one of the things that makes our job so interesting – you never work the same job twice.

That said, almost every single job starts with the same step: identifying and stopping the source of the water.

That might seem obvious (after all, if you have water gushing into your house, you’d want it to stop, right?). But for many people, it comes as a surprise. All they see is water standing in their basement that they want to get rid of, and they don’t always understand why we’re so adamant that the source be shut off before we begin.

The major reason is that, if you can’t stop further damage from occurring, then performing mitigation is useless. Sure, we can extract some of the water and even set up equipment, but if the water comes pouring back in (or even if it trickles back in and accumulates), that work was just a costly waste of time.

In addition, identifying the source of the water helps us figure out what kinds of work and safety protocols that we have to follow. To the naked eye, water from a toilet supply line and water from an exterior flood might look very similar on your basement floor. On a microbial level, however, there’s a world of difference.

So if you’re dealing water damage, remember: step one is to stop the water.