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What to Do If You Discover Water Damage in Your Basement

Basements are particularly prone to flooding.  From outside leaks to major storm events, to broken pipes, there are a lot of reasons you could end up with water damage in your basement. Once discovered, you should act quickly and decisively to deal with the problem.  Water damage is ongoing, and cleanup is a must – particularly if there’s standing water or ongoing leakage.

Here’s what you need to do, to minimize the damage done to your home.

The Most Important Steps After Your Basement Receives Water Damage

  • Survey the damage

How widespread is the flooding?  Do you have standing water or just some saturation on a wall?  The more water there is, the harder it’s going to be to clean up. Worse, if vulnerable areas (like walls or soft items) remain saturated for more than 24 hours, mold will start to grow.  Once started, it will quickly spread.  This is why you need to act fast!

  • Call a water damage restoration company

Unless the damage is truly minor, you’ll want experts to help with the cleanup.  Merely sopping up any standing water isn’t sufficient; you need high-powered equipment to thoroughly dry out any saturated areas, to prevent mold from growing.

  • Remove any standing water

The first major step in cleanup is to get rid of any standing water, along with shutting down the source of the water if needed. This is best accomplished with a sump pump, shop vac, or professional-grade vacuums. Such equipment can potentially be rented but you’ll probably be better off simply letting professionals handle the job.

  • Disinfection

Even if the water in your basement comes from a perfectly safe source, such as an inbound water pipe, it’s going to start going stagnant quickly. Any water damage cleanup will include at least one round of disinfectants, as a precautionary measure if nothing else. If the water has been standing for over 24 hours, mold mitigation will also be necessary.

  • Thorough drying

Finally, the entire basement will need to be dried out. This is best accomplished with a combination of heat sources and high-powered fans blowing air across the area, then out of the house.  Again, failure to properly dry out the basement means a mold outbreak will be nearly inevitable.

Malkin Cleaners

If your basement has flooded in the Vancouver area, contact Malkin Cleaners! We have nearly a century of experience providing fast, reliable cleanup services.