Have you ever seen a house that’s been flooded out from either a local river bursting its banks or a pipe bursting in the attic and wondered how you would even begin to start cleaning it up? As a company who carry out this sort of work a fair bit, we have certainly seen some daunting messes in our time resulting from flooding so we know exactly how to clean them up. Because we can manage the whole clean up from talking to your insurance company all the way through to organising tradespeople to make the home or business premises fully functional and safe again, we can give you an idea of the process we go through to put flood damage right and let you know as a home/business owner what you should do in the event of flood damage.
What to do if your Home or Business is Flooded?
Obviously, the first thing to do if your building is flooding through some means that isn’t a natural disaster, is to establish where the water is coming from and stop it if you can. It’s always a good idea to find out where the stopcock in your house/premises is so you could do this in the future if necessary. Then turn off the electricity regardless of how the water is getting in (as long as it’s safe to do so) as it can be dangerous if you leave it on. Once the electricity is off and any children and pets are out of the building and safe, you may want to remove any undamaged items until the building is dried out and cleaned up. The next thing to do is contact your insurance company or landlord, if you rent, and make sure you take as many pictures as you can and make a note of the extent of the damage.
What we do to Restore Flooded Homes/Premises
How to restore a flood damaged properly will, clearly, depend on the extent of the damage and the cause of the flooding. Assessing this damage is one of the first things we do and we generally work with the owners’ loss adjusters and/or insurance companies to do this. For lots of cases, the first thing to do is to get any remaining water out using pumps and/or dehumidifiers. Once everything is dry, we can call in the required tradespeople to begin any necessary repairs. As licensed waste carriers, we can clear out everything that’s damaged beyond repair and dispose of it. Damp and mould can be a problem with flood damaged properties so we clean everything thoroughly using steam cleaning or disinfectants as appropriate. We can even organise for affected clothes to be dry cleaned and the undamaged items to be stored while the work is taking place.
It’s possible to manage and undertake all this work yourself if you suffer a flood but it’s time consuming and can be stressful especially if your home has suffered serious damage or your business has been forced to close because of it. That’s why we can manage everything to take this worry off your hands and make your home liveable again or get your business up and running again as quickly as possible. For any advice on cleaning up after a flood, please feel free to give us a call on 01273 273 999 or email info@silverstarcleaning.co.uk.