If flooding ever threatens your property, chances are your garage will be the first to take on water. Today, many expensive possessions that could be damaged by exposure to water are routinely present or stored inside the garage. However, in many cases, the garage is the structure most vulnerable to outdoor flooding due to heavy rain, snowmelt, or widespread flooding from other sources.

If water damage of most any sort strikes your home, you’ll probably classify it with just one simple word: Bad.

For water damage professionals, however, these events are placed into more specific classifications as defined by the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) in accordance with ANSI, the American National Standards Institute.

Water extraction is just one of the vital stages of a successful water damage recovery project. Once the first, most urgent concern—stopping the source of water—is accomplished, the next priority becomes water removal. This means removing deep standing water that may be present anywhere in the house (especially the basement), utilizing submersible pumps or other suction devices to pull out large amounts of water in a short period of time.

Once it strikes inside a home, water damage waits for no one. In scientific terms, water is classified as the “universal solvent.” For good reason: it penetrates, dissolves, and deteriorates more substances than any liquid on earth. The damage that occurs due to the influx of water inside a home isn’t a self-limiting event. It’s an active, ongoing process that keeps on keeping on as time passes.

In many cases, a dry basement doesn’t happen naturally. In fact, basements are almost a laboratory setting for the accumulation of humidity and moisture. Ideally, basement humidity should be kept below 50%. Factors working against maintaining a dry basement include:

• Soil moisture exuding upwards through the foundation
• Significant condensation as warm moist air contacts chronically cool basement walls and floor
• Leaky or “sweating” plumbing pipes routed through the basement
• Cracks in the foundation wall that admit groundwater seepage, particularly during the summer rainy season
• Overflowing roof gutters or downspouts that are too short
• Running clothes washing machines and driers in the basement

No matter how much you may know about water damage inside a house, sewage cleanup is different. Most everything about a standard water damage incident becomes more urgent, more complex, and more hazardous when the source is a backed-up sewer line. Raw sewage—appropriately called “black water” by water damage professionals—is teeming with toxic bacteria and viruses that can turn formerly clean, safe indoor living spaces into a contaminated danger zone.

Like the natural flow of water itself, water damage restoration prices vary according to a number of factors. Water damage is not a consistent event from one location to the next, and certain unique conditions may increase or decrease water damage restoration prices. That’s one more good reason why a prompt professional inspection by a qualified water damage recovery provider is critical to an accurate estimate of costs as well as time to completion.

Handling plumbing issues during the present pandemic may require giving a little more thought to the household complex system of pipes, drains, heater, and fixtures. It’s an interesting fact that many historians credit modern indoor plumbing as a major factor in improved health and the longer average life expectancy we enjoy today. Fully functional plumbing, as well as handling plumbing issues effectively, supports personal hygiene which, in turn, may prevent the spread of a variety of communicable diseases, including COVID-19.

Since mold is a frequent side-effect of home water damage, considering ways to prevent mold on clothes is a worthwhile preventive measure. Mold grows indoors when moisture and dormant mold spores come together. Fabrics including clothing—especially those made of natural fibers—support mold growth following water damage. Either direct contact with released water, or the unusually high humidity typically present inside a water-damaged house, may be sufficient to trigger mold growth on clothing.

While water damage causes foundation cracks and other issues, this same process is likewise the origin of indoor or structural damage that frequently ensues later on. Because a concrete foundation is porous, water pooling on the surface or contained in the soil surrounding the home soaks into the concrete foundation and initiates gradual deterioration.