What Flooding Conditions Can Result from Structural Breaches in Forest Hills Homes?

7/27/2020 (Permalink)

Storms Damage Roofs in Forest Hills Resulting in Extensive Damage--Call SERVPRO for Cleanup and Restoration

Storm damages can leave your property vulnerable to threatening conditions like flooding and microbial growth.

It can be traumatic to see your Forest Hills home contending with widespread floodwater, especially when you are among several properties in the community facing these same circumstances. The faster that you can address the present concerns, the less of a lasting impact they ultimately have on the house. Long exposures of materials to floodwater, even clean water conditions, can deteriorate and degrade the building material the point of requiring replacement and repairs. The effects of substantial weather events can impact how susceptible your property remains to continued damages from flooding or other concerns.

Storm damage in Forest Hills homes and businesses can vary from one structure to the next, meaning that the same preparation for recovery is not recommended. We investigate each of the restoration and repair tasks that we undertake beforehand, making sure that we understand the specific actions that must get taken and the desired results. With storm losses, we can contend with both substantial structural concerns for the property as well as the connected damages with situations like subsequent flooding in the house. In most instances, some of the primary structural concerns can get temporarily addressed when technicians arrive following the first notice of flood damage.

What are Emergency Services?

The purpose of emergency services is to prevent conditions present after a flood from getting out of control before mitigation begins. While there are ultimately many stages of set up that must occur to allocate resources, personnel, and equipment to where it is necessary, emergency services are efforts to tide a property over until more direct mitigation and recovery steps can follow. Some of these actions by our in-house contractors and our qualified water restoration technicians include:

• Debris Removal – There are direct concerns with solids, debris, and mud that could impact the entire structure. Muck-out cleaning is a service provided to reduce the present contaminant levels and reveal structural concerns.
• Extraction – Water removal can be a vital element to the overall recovery of flood loss incidents, especially in situations where standing water remains isolated to a specific place in the house like the attic or basement.
• Repairs – Structural damages are not uncommon, especially in situations where severe weather events test the limitations of shingles, siding, underlayment materials, and other exterior defenses.
• Temporary Construction Solutions – When repairs are not possible immediately, sealing the breaches in the house can have the same initial effect. Our contractors can seal up roof damages with tarps or provide board-up services for openings or missing windows.

How Can Your Roof Become Damaged?

Severe weather events can often target the roof of your home above the other structural exterior elements. The roof is one of the first lines of defense to protect your home, divert water away from the structure, and absorb the impact of brutal weather conditions. High winds, hail, torrential rainfall, and other conditions can all have immediate and destructive impacts on the entire roof system. Because many homes in the area are comprised of roof systems that feature plywood, wooden joists, a thin weatherproofing membrane, and shingles, a failure in any of these individual elements can allow water penetration to reach the inside of your property. Between torrential rains and heavy snowfalls at different points of the year, general damages to your roof include:

• Missing Shingles
• Saturated Underlayment
• Partial/Total Collapse

What Threats Exist with Openings in the Exterior of Your Home?

Damage to the sides of your home can also have an immediate and severe impact on the property overall. It is not a considerable challenge for conditions to exist that both break out windows and force rain into the structure. Wind-driven rain and other precipitation events can quickly damage the immediately affected areas, allowing for situations like pooling that threatens flooring systems, wall systems, and other porous construction materials. Often the entry points for this type of flooding include:

• Windows
• Doors
• Skylights

How Likely is Flooding from the Foundation?

With enough pressure built on the outside of blockwork used in constructing a foundation for the home, it is not challenging for water to penetrate vulnerabilities. Once breaches exist, they continually worsen and grow until resolved by our responding contractors. We have multiple repair tactics for these conditions, including sealing up cracks and penetration points from inside with fast-setting patch material.

Flooding is often one of the most destructive disasters to impact residences throughout our area, so it is a situation that we stay prepared to respond to fast. Storms can strike with little warning, so you can count on our SERVPRO of Forest Hills / Ridgewood to get there quickly with the equipment and personnel to help. Give us a call at (718) 381-3702.