Lessons Learned from Basement Flooding?

[Anonymous]

Beware when your neighbor installs a stone patio nearly the size of their yard.

All the rain water that is not reaching the ground on their side needs to go somewhere, probably into your yard.

[Anonymous]

1. dont ever purchase a home down slope from surrounding properties and more paarticularly in "tear down" areas. The lot size stays constant, the new homes is often 5X the torn down footprint.

2. If available, purchase a walk out basement home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We keep an extra sump pump on hand. We’ve had too many fail at inopportune times and they’re not particularly expensive…

'
We doubled up - two different sump pits on either side of out drains. If one pump fails, the other is sufficient.

My big lesson is to let everything really dry after the drywall cut. We bought our own fans because it was much cheaper than renting them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our basement flooded and now we are drying out.

Anyone been there, done that and have tips on contractors, materials to replace carpet, etc?

What do you wish you had known?

Why has it flooded? Is it a foundation issue or did a pipe burst? Too much rain?

Too much rain.

[Anonymous]

Buy your own fans and commercial dehumidifier and run them longer than the contractor recommends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on how the water came in. Outdoor grading and the condition of gutters can make a huge difference.

We moved. New house has sump pumps and we were very vigilant about running the gutter discharge well away from the foundation.

Our contractor grade gutters couldn’t handle the volume. Higher volume gutters and running discharge well away from foundation did the trick, along with having the sump pump on its own dedicated circuit (though we did have to do a bucket brigade when the power went out in Sandy).

[Anonymous]

Get it checked for mold .

Most home insurance policies don't cover rain damaged basements so be proactive against the next downpour - gutters might need to be re-angled/deeper, landscaping graded, sump pump, etc...

Is this a SFH or TH?

Are you gutting the whole basement? What do you use your basement for - home gym, office. playroom, storage/laundry? Think about how you want to move forward?

[Anonymous]

Figure out why before fixing. Insurance likely will not cover if its due to rainwater, so don't let them delay your response. And check your policy.

The immediate fixer people (we called ServPro) are MORE than happy to install some dehumidifiers and leave them for days on end without giving you a quote for how much it costs... and then charge an arm and a leg. Wish we'd just said no. We ripped everything out anyway. What a waste of $.

Drywall, floors, insulation -- it all has to go. At least the bottom few feet. It's a huge expense. We are dealing with this part now. And no one will quote the repair until the "water mitigation" people come first. (They also charged $$$.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Figure out why before fixing. Insurance likely will not cover if its due to rainwater, so don't let them delay your response. And check your policy.

The immediate fixer people (we called ServPro) are MORE than happy to install some dehumidifiers and leave them for days on end without giving you a quote for how much it costs... and then charge an arm and a leg. Wish we'd just said no. We ripped everything out anyway. What a waste of $.

Drywall, floors, insulation -- it all has to go. At least the bottom few feet. It's a huge expense. We are dealing with this part now. And no one will quote the repair until the "water mitigation" people come first. (They also charged $$$.)

Going through this now! Restoration Doctor charged us $27k (just for the water mitigation and partial demo).... after stealing some of our items and breaking a lot of stuff while moving it all around.

Insurance did not cover it because it's water from "the outside", i.e. rain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make sure not to use anything but concrete or porcelain/ceramic tile in your basement floors. Other types of flooring will get ruined with flooding. Check your gutters to see if they are sufficient in a hard rain. Get them cleaned regularly if you have large trees in the area (we have this done 4x per year). Make sure your downspouts drain away from the house. Snake them. Check the grading of your yard to see if puddles develop near the house and whether water moves away. You want it to move away, not settle. If you dig around the house, you can check the mortar, the parging, and seal as needed. Have your remediation firm (I assume you're getting one to dry things out and prevent mold) to check for leaks and the source of the water. Once the source is identified, if it's due to rot or deterioration elsewhere, get it fixed. If the flooding is due a sewer backup, then it's probably time to replace your sewer and water lines. That's a start. I hope it helps.

What about LVP?

Good catch. Vinyl flooring is fine too.

No LVP. Only ceramic or concrete! We have ceramic tile in whole basement except in our small gym, which had LVP. The last time we flooded (multiple, chronic problems that took us years to solve!), we had to pull the LVP up to dry out the padding underneath. I would only do ceramic or concrete!

I have our sump pumps replaced proactively every five years just to be safe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Figure out why before fixing. Insurance likely will not cover if its due to rainwater, so don't let them delay your response. And check your policy.

The immediate fixer people (we called ServPro) are MORE than happy to install some dehumidifiers and leave them for days on end without giving you a quote for how much it costs... and then charge an arm and a leg. Wish we'd just said no. We ripped everything out anyway. What a waste of $.

Drywall, floors, insulation -- it all has to go. At least the bottom few feet. It's a huge expense. We are dealing with this part now. And no one will quote the repair until the "water mitigation" people come first. (They also charged $$$.)

Going through this now! Restoration Doctor charged us $27k (just for the water mitigation and partial demo).... after stealing some of our items and breaking a lot of stuff while moving it all around.

Insurance did not cover it because it's water from "the outside", i.e. rain.

Sorry that happened to you. We went with Mid-Atlantic Mold and Remediation and were very pleased with the responsiveness, the thoroughness in diagnosing where the water came in and then, remediating and actually being able to do the repairs:

https://www.midatlanticmold.com/

Most companies I called were happy to run a bunch of fans to "mitigate" the water and charge a ton but not do the actually repairs once the place dried out. These guys did everything, bringing everyone on site at 11 pm the night it happened (which was around 4-5 pm).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Figure out why before fixing. Insurance likely will not cover if its due to rainwater, so don't let them delay your response. And check your policy.

The immediate fixer people (we called ServPro) are MORE than happy to install some dehumidifiers and leave them for days on end without giving you a quote for how much it costs... and then charge an arm and a leg. Wish we'd just said no. We ripped everything out anyway. What a waste of $.

Drywall, floors, insulation -- it all has to go. At least the bottom few feet. It's a huge expense. We are dealing with this part now. And no one will quote the repair until the "water mitigation" people come first. (They also charged $$$.)

Going through this now! Restoration Doctor charged us $27k (just for the water mitigation and partial demo).... after stealing some of our items and breaking a lot of stuff while moving it all around.

Insurance did not cover it because it's water from "the outside", i.e. rain.

Sorry that happened to you. We went with Mid-Atlantic Mold and Remediation and were very pleased with the responsiveness, the thoroughness in diagnosing where the water came in and then, remediating and actually being able to do the repairs:

https://www.midatlanticmold.com/

Most companies I called were happy to run a bunch of fans to "mitigate" the water and charge a ton but not do the actually repairs once the place dried out. These guys did everything, bringing everyone on site at 11 pm the night it happened (which was around 4-5 pm).

Thanks, we didn't know any better and were panicking. I'll call these folks instead if this nightmare ever happens again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Figure out why before fixing. Insurance likely will not cover if its due to rainwater, so don't let them delay your response. And check your policy.

The immediate fixer people (we called ServPro) are MORE than happy to install some dehumidifiers and leave them for days on end without giving you a quote for how much it costs... and then charge an arm and a leg. Wish we'd just said no. We ripped everything out anyway. What a waste of $.

Drywall, floors, insulation -- it all has to go. At least the bottom few feet. It's a huge expense. We are dealing with this part now. And no one will quote the repair until the "water mitigation" people come first. (They also charged $$$.)

Going through this now! Restoration Doctor charged us $27k (just for the water mitigation and partial demo).... after stealing some of our items and breaking a lot of stuff while moving it all around.

Insurance did not cover it because it's water from "the outside", i.e. rain.

I'm the PP who called ServPro. We went with another company for mitigation and it was around 5k for one room and a hallway. I'm not sure how big your project is, but that sounds crazy. Also, we got them to lower the cost when we explained insurance was not covering any of it. I think a higher # is baked into all of these water mitigation folks' estimates, as they anticipate negotiating with insurance. Even our repair contractor (who we like and used before for other things) took 10k off the quote once we told him insurance was not covering it.

[Anonymous]

Every time we have landscapers lay new mulch, we MUST check that the gutters were not covered.
That and water sensors that run off the wi-fi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Figure out why before fixing. Insurance likely will not cover if its due to rainwater, so don't let them delay your response. And check your policy.

The immediate fixer people (we called ServPro) are MORE than happy to install some dehumidifiers and leave them for days on end without giving you a quote for how much it costs... and then charge an arm and a leg. Wish we'd just said no. We ripped everything out anyway. What a waste of $.

Drywall, floors, insulation -- it all has to go. At least the bottom few feet. It's a huge expense. We are dealing with this part now. And no one will quote the repair until the "water mitigation" people come first. (They also charged $$$.)

Flood insurance doesn't cover much in a basement, but it does cover cleanup and remediation. It's also pretty cheap