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Fire & Water - Cleanup & Restoration

Archived Why SERVPRO Blog Posts

Colton Home Needs Cleanup and Recovery from a Professional? Whom to Call? Why SERVPRO

7/2/2019 (Permalink)

SERVPRO Provides the Restoration Services You Deserve for Your Colton Home

Fast Response and Highly Qualified Technicians: Why SERVPRO Ranks Among Colton’s Leading Restoration Resources

Water, fire, mold, and storm damage are not everyday occurrences in Colton, but when your residence is in harm’s way, you need to react quickly to avoid long term consequences. A crisis in any of the categories has the potential to impact the physical integrity of your property negatively. Ignoring the damage also can raise safety and health issues. Successful mitigation and remediation depend on the efforts of well-prepared and certified disaster recovery projects managers and technicians.

Water Damage
The most common water damage sources in Colton homes are failing plumbing and appliances that are breaking down. Cracked pipes, loose connections, worn out seals, and other signs of a problem are often hidden behind walls and under cabinets or exist deep in the workings of a machine. Homeowners cannot be faulted for missing early signs of a water loss, but it is unfortunate because the outcome of remediation attempts are most successful the earlier they occur.

Signals that you have a slow leak in the plumbing or an ailing appliance are varied depending on the situation. Experts recommend an evaluation by a professional, which is why SERVPRO can help if you note any of the following:

?    Your water bill takes an unexpected jump upwards.

?    Your water pressure reduces without another cause such as an appliance or hose running concurrently.

?    Your walls or ceilings develop staining or seem to bulge in certain areas.

?    Your home develops an unpleasant, musty odor.

?    Your rugs or carpeting have wet spots unrelated to spills or pet accidents.

?    You hear dripping.

?    You notice puddling under appliances or cabinets.

Our Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC)-accredited technicians are well-versed in the mysteries of hidden leaks. When we arrive to evaluate the situation, we bring sophisticated water and moisture detection devices to find the leak or leaks and map out the migration of water from the source. Thermal imaging locates hidden pockets of water, and moisture meters measure the level of absorbed water in structural components like drywall and framing. Familiarity with these tools is why SERVPRO shows superior results.

Once we find the leak and the associated water damage, our team helps arrange for the repair of the crack or break. Then our team uses a variety of best practices strategies to remove the water and dry out your home.

Fire Damage
Many homeowners in Colton believe fire damage does not need professional mitigation and remediation if the blaze was small and extinguished quickly. Embarrassment, lack of time, and concern about the cost of and the disruption when a fire remediation team arrives guides the impulse to do a quick DIY clean up and hope the incident is in the past.

Unfortunately, the harm fire does in your home might not be limited to a small space where it began, and ordinary cleaning methods can make the damage worse. Fire residues are incredibly toxic and corrosive to surfaces and items, can affect air quality, and are not limited to what you can see. When materials combust the particles incompletely burned remain in your home as soot. Soot particles are tiny, much smaller than the bits of dust seen floating in the light -- soot averages 2.5 microns in size compared with 40 microns for household dust.

Airborne drift is why SERVPRO managers inspect your entire house to determine if soot particles migrated to other areas. Because soot settles on surfaces cooler than the fire you might think you have minimal damage because almost no residues are near the fire site. The spread of soot, especially if your HVAC system was working at the time of the fire, can be extensive.

Persistent odors signal that residues remain, and days or weeks after the fire building materials throughout your home can discolor and deteriorate. A professional evaluation followed by appropriate cleaning of residues and deodorization avoids long term issues and expenses after that “minor” fire.

Mold Remediation
Homeowners in Colton battling mold damage might not realize that ordinary cleaning methods can make a microbial infestation worse. Mold spores settle on surfaces and drift through the air in every house, causing few problems until presented with a ready source of water. Ironically, the very tools we use to clean our home are almost always diluted with significant quantities of water, including chlorine bleach and other frequently used household disinfectants.

The color of the mold in the corner of your tiled shower lightens when cleaned, but returns persistently. Our highly-trained technicians know that grout cracks and loses its sealing ability, permitting water to pass through to the backer board and wall studs. The mold colonies need no light to multiply, and we often find large infestations in cavities between walls.

We rise to the challenge if this is the case in your bathroom, why SERVPRO is the company of choice for our satisfied customers. The protocol we employ was developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Technicians use plastic barriers and a negative pressure air scrubbing system to contain the area and controlled demolition to access the moldy materials. Brushing, scraping, and gentle abrasion removes the mold and any porous structures irreparably infested. HEPA filter enhanced vacuuming and treatment with EPA-registered disinfectants and priming with an antimicrobial coating follow.

Our team helps arrange for rehabbing, stressing that grout and the joint between the tiles and the wall must be sealed and maintained. Running an exhaust fan and wiping the shower down regularly also help minimize the recurrence of mold damage.

Storm Damage
Cleaning up after storms in Colton can include flooding or even mudslide abatement. The rain and winds strike quickly, and preparations, if completed, can only protect your home to a limited extent. Inches to feet of water in your lower levels need professional attention, even more so if runoff from the San Bernardino Mountains carries silt and other debris into your home.

Storm damage complexity is why SERVPRO is a full-service disaster recovery company with the resources to manage even catastrophic loss to your home after storm-related flooding. We respond to call 24/7 and can scale our response to the level of the damage each customer endures. Our team is IICRC-trained, and our equipment is durable, commercial quality, and state-of-the-art.

Beginning with securing your dwelling by boarding and tarping up damage through water and silt removal to structural drying SERVPRO is up to the challenge. We know how stressful a storm damage event can be and perform all needed tasks with the care, compassion, and professionalism you and your family deserve.

Rely on the committed team from SERVPRO of Colton / Loma Linda / Grand Terrace for all of your residential disaster response needs. Contact us at (909) 514-1900 day or night-- We’re Faster To Any Size Disaster.

Local gov't right here.

Don’t Let Your Laundry Room Spell Water Damage Trouble For Your Colton Home

5/16/2019 (Permalink)

SERVPRO of Colton / Loma Linda / Grand Terrace is available 24/7 at (909) 514-1900 to handle any size water damage in your home.

SERVPRO Handles Late Night Laundry Room Water Damage In Colton

It is normal to take precautions around your home to prevent water damage. Regular checking of plumbing for leaks and maintenance on appliances connected to supply lines are ways to help prevent large-scale water loss in your home.

SERVPRO was called late one evening to mitigate water damage in a Colton home due to a dog chewing a supply line in a laundry room. The homeowner said the water had been spewing in the room anywhere from one to five hours as he had come home at lunch to check on his dog, and there were no issues, but there was almost an inch of standing water when he arrived from work that evening.

Why SERVPRO? Our technicians have certifications in multiple areas of restoration sciences, including water damage restoration. We have the tools and expertise to restore a home to its preloss condition. We used portable extractors to remove the standing water left in the room. The homeowner had put down towels in an attempt to absorb the water, which we removed along with the soaked laundry room rugs for drying in another area of the home. We scoped the room and found elevated moisture in the wall cavity around the supply line in the wall behind the washing machine. The warped sheetrock could not be saved through drying and was cut away using flood cuts to let adequate air flow into the wall cavity.

In preparation for drying, the washer and dryer were placed on raised blocks to ensure they were dried underneath. Air movers quickly lowered the moisture levels in the wall cavity and the rest of the laundry room. SERVPRO techs took moisture readings before during and after the drying process to ensure the room meets drying goals. Standardly, we usually have a drying goal of around 45% or less humidity in the room. This action helps inhibit the growth of mold or development of odors. To finish the mitigation, we cleaned and disinfected the affected area.

SERVPRO of Colton / Loma Linda / Grand Terrace is available 24/7 at (909) 514-1900 to handle any size water damage in your home. We arrive within hours and have the training and equipment to make your water loss “Like it never even happened.”

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