Contact Lapel Water Restoration

How do you keep water damage from spreading before help arrives?

The two jobs that matter most before the crew arrives are keeping people away from wet outlets and shutting off the water, and the steps below cover both.

• Unplug nearby electronics only if the outlet and the floor around it are dry, and leave anything sitting in water where it is until the power is off.
• Find the main shutoff before you do anything else with the water, since closing it stops a supply line leak in a minute or two.
• Listen for the sump pump. If it's silent while the pit is full, the problem may be power or a stuck float, and the crew can sort out which.
• If heavy rain is pushing water in, move valuables up and away from the walls where it's coming through.
• After a hard freeze, check exterior walls and the garage for wet spots before you turn the water back on.
• Get papers and keepsakes off the floor and into a dry room first, since those are the hardest things to replace.
• The EPA's mold guide puts the drying window at 24 to 48 hours for water damaged areas and items, so the sooner the crew can start, the better your odds of keeping mold out.
• Hold off on permanent repairs until you've read your policy. The claim tips from the Indiana Department of Insurance explain why.

What does the person who answers need to know?

The first call takes a few minutes, and most of it is about where the water came from and how far it spread.

• Whether you were able to close the main valve.
• If any of it came up through a toilet or floor drain, since that changes how the crew handles it.
• If you've seen standing water when you look in the crawl space access.
• When it started, even if it's a guess.
• Roughly when the house was built. Much of Lapel went up in the 1950s to 1980s, and the age points the crew toward likely trouble spots.
• The name of your insurance company, if you've already decided to file.
• Whether the power to the wet area is on or off.

Answer what you can, and the crew will fill in the rest during the first visit.

What happens on site after you call?

Their first job is the source. Once the leak or backup is stopped and the power is safe, they move on to how far the water went.

Next they map the wet area with moisture meters, because water travels under flooring and behind baseboards farther than it looks. Our crew takes the damage photos as they go and puts them into a photo report.

Our water restoration manager is IICRC certified. The IICRC is the standards body behind S500, its standard for professional water damage restoration, now in its Fifth Edition from 2021.

Before any tear out, the crew walks you through what they found, room by room, so you can decide with your insurance company how you want to move forward.

From there it's extraction and then drying, with the crew checking moisture readings until the wet materials are dry again.

What should the crew know about homes in Lapel?

Homes in Lapel span the 1950s to 1980s, and the age of yours tells the crew what kind of pipes to expect. You'll see bungalow and ranch homes across Lapel. Homes here sit on full basements and crawl spaces, and each one takes on water a little differently. Being near Stony Creek and Mud Creek means storm water and a high water table are part of the picture, so tell us if the water came from outside. Older homes in the area can still have galvanized supply lines, which corrode and narrow over time. Tell the person who answers what you know, and the crew will take it from there.

What parts of Lapel and nearby towns do we cover?

Homeowners in these parts of Lapel use this page:

• Montgomery Farms · much of it from the 2020s, basements are common
• Tuscany
• Historic Downtown / Main Street Core · built mostly in the 1870s, basements are common
• Town of Fishersburg
• Woodward Street / South Lapel Residential Area · built mostly in the 1980s, most with basements

We also take calls from nearby Britton Falls, Edgewood, Pendleton, Avalon, Saxony, Wellington Estates, Coverdale and Tanglewood. If you're not sure your street is in range, call and ask, and the person who answers will tell you whether a crew can get to you. For details on the work itself, see our page on water damage restoration and basement flooding.

What questions come up before a call?