Hello,
During the recent winter crazziness in Texas, some pipes in my home burst; I am away from home for health reasons and planning to fly to Texas to see with my own eyes. But in the mean time, I want to prepare myself as far as what to do. I know from my neighbors that there is water in the living room, furnitures are wet, carpet is wet, sheet rocks are down, walls are wet. My main concern is not the furnitures, rather the humidity after.
If you have some experience with what I am dealing with, please share it with me. How is the best way to deal with humidity when walls are wet. My insurance does not cover "those natural disasters". I need to take the best steps to minimize the damages.
Thank you for your advice.
Vava
Thank you for all the useful information. Damages are very extensive. Our insurance does not cover flooding due to broken pipes. But this is our home and we will save it. We call a restoration company. They installed huge fans for almost 10 days, every other they would check the humidity level and the mold. They ripped off carpet and hardwood floor, sheetrocks and knocked down some walls. The cleaned rugs and ceramc floor. Their bill is so huge, but we did not have any other better choice. We will be rebuilding step by step, it is painful. I lost part of my furniture, books, clothing, shoes, but these things are easy to replace, rebuilding is where we will need strong
cash. Thank you very much for your support and please if you know of any institution that help rebuild, I will love to get their contact
Your home-owners insurance should cover at least part of the restoration. They can most likely refer you to a company that will undo the damage. The sooner the better! Good luck.
Your homeowners should cover this and you should have water extractors in there yesterday as mold can form very quickly and insurance may not cover mold! This happened to me and fortunately I notified insurance immediately but they failed to get anyone out to start the drying out process so they ended up covering the whole mold remediation process which took quite some time...I had to move out. Everything in the house, including linens and clothing had to be cleaned, carpet and dry wall had to be replaced, it was a disaster! Please call homeowners as soon as possible - good luck!
Many Insurance companies will pay for part of burst pipes.. You need to not assume they are not going to cover the cost of parts of this.
Also carpet Companies have special fans and things to help dry out homes.
My inlaws lake house once flooded because of an overflowing toilet in the center of the house. They too were not there for a while and when they returned they were faced with this mess. .. It was amazing how these companies come in and can air it all out.. They will pull down the drywall or saw it mid height if needed.. they pulled up the carpets and dried them out. They were able to clean them so that there was no odor and they were sanitary again..
Call ahead and get some people to come out and give estimates..
get some heavy duty fans and just try to dry everything out before it gets warm and mold can start. Yikes!!
You'll need to contact a Fire/Loss Mitigation restoration company to rent the fans. My neighbor works for ServePro and he said there's currently a waiting list for the fans at his location because of all the craziness. I would call and get on it ASAP.
Best of luck to you.
Are you sure your homeowners insurance does not cover this? I wouldn't be so quick to assume the answer is no without formally contacting them about this situation. A year ago my husband and I were away for a week with our children when our A/C froze up and defrosted and destroyed our bamboo flooring in our bedroom on the other side of the wall. Talk about devastating because not only was our master bedroom newly renovated only a year prior, but our bamboo flooring was individually nailed to the floor AND the color was no longer available! Our homeowners insurance didn't cover the replacement of the new A/C but it did cover the expense of ripping out the entire bedroom floor (what a job!) and replacing it....minus our deductible. For your situation, I would most certainly be concerned about mold. You will have to get that wet dry wall out of your house, as well as the carpeting. I would suggest hiring a professional to determine just how far up the wall it is wet. Our insurance adjuster had a device he used to determine the moisture level in the floor. It was quite moist! Wherever your dry wall is wet, it must be pulled off and replaced. Get some fans in your house right away, too. I hope this all helps. Oh, and my insurance company told me that if we had opted to hire professionals to come in and take care of any mold issues, it would have been paid for. We opted to use fans, which we borrowed, and my husband pulled up the floor right away. Call your homeowners insurance to know for sure what is covered. Don't make assumptions here. They may be able to help.
Your homeowners insurance should cover this. My parents had their house flood while on vacation from a burst hose to their washing machine. Entire house was flooded when they came home. They had to move out for a couple of months while disaster restoration specialists removed all flooring, stripped the walls and rebuilt. Wood furniture went to specialists to get fixed, although not all could be saved. Flooding is very serious and can lead to mold problems that can not only harm your health but prevent resale of your home, so be sure to get the right people working on the problem. You want a disaster restoration company doing the work.
