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How Water Damage Affects Your Home or Business Over Time | SERVPRO® of Van Nuys South
5/16/2022 (Permalink)
SERVPRO of Van Nuys South is your 24/7 water restoration expert. Call us right away if you need immediate service.
When moisture spreads inside the walls and floors of your home, the events can be disastrous. Many homeowners overlook the clear indicators that water damage is taking place, like a leaky faucet or water spots on the walls and ceilings.
Household leaks don’t seem overly important, but an average household leak can waste up to 10,000 gallons of water in a year.
Weather-related problems may not seem like a huge problem in California, but manmade water damage often does just as much destruction as natural disasters. So while you may not have to worry about hurricanes, a leaky pipe could be slowly degrading your home or business.
Excessive moisture allows the damage to progress rapidly by seeping into walls, floors and any soft surface. Identifying the problem and handling it immediately is the only way to produce the best results at the cheapest cost to you.
We’ve compiled a timeline of how water damage affects your home:
In the First 24 Hours
If you live in a house in a high-risk area, there is a one in four chance of a flood damaging your home within a 30-year period. Knowing what to do next is essential.
Once water damage affects you, it’s important to act quickly during the initial 24 to 48 hours to protect your home from further destruction. There are many items located in the home that will immediately be at risk of damage.
Soft furniture, carpet, rugs and upholstery will absorb water fast. Wooden structures, supports and furniture will begin to soak through and can end up swelling drastically.
Unfortunately, many personal items like clothing, books, photos and documents are especially vulnerable to the effects of water.
It’s best to keep these items located in waterproof containers or higher on shelves and in closets to reduce the risk of losing them. If you aren’t prepared and your personal belongings do suffer water damage, it’s essential to act quickly.
Our SERVPRO experts specialize in restoring your items instead of merely replacing them, which can save you money while protecting your precious valuables. If there is anything that we cannot restore, you’ll be notified immediately and these items will be removed to prevent the spread of moisture.
Within the First Week
Once the water has been present for longer than 24 hours, the damage accelerates and goes deepr into your building. Mold growth can explode at this point when excessive moisture is left unaddressed, potentially affecting your home’s structure.
Even worse, any porous surfaces like drywall, wood flooring, studs and walls will lose structural integrity and be at an increased risk of collapse. Metal surfaces, piping and appliances will begin to corrode and suffer severe damage during this period as well.
After One Week
After water and excessive moisture has been left to sit for extended periods, there will likely be catastrophic damage to your belongings and potentially to the structure of your home. Many homes that are left to suffer in water for this long have irreversible damage.
As time goes on, the costs and efforts to restore the structure will increase significantly, and the risks associated with structural damage are much greater.
At SERVPRO, our unique restoration process will begin with a phone call, ideally inside the 24-hour mark. We then begin our service work by thoroughly extracting any standing water inside or around the home.
This step helps stop moisture from spreading further into your home, and reduces the overall drying time.
Odds are that floors, furniture and any other affected belongings, like clothes, will need a deep-cleaning, sanitizing and deodorization. Once we have removed as much water as possible, we send in our expert specialists with industry-leading equipment that can remove the water you can’t see.
After these initial steps, your home may need construction work to get your property back to its preloss condition. This step could include minor repairs or rebuilding entire areas of your home.
By choosing SERVPRO, we’re able to simplify the restoration process for you like no one else. We handle both the initial damage mitigation, and tackle the rebuilding of any affected areas.
We know that your input is important, so we keep you up to date through every step of the process. As always, our main goal is to have you back in your newly restored home or business as soon as possible.
Regardless of the type of water damage sustained, SERVPRO has the tools and teams to help your home or business recover. Contact us 24⁄7 when you need a dependable team to help you recover.