My niece recently called me with the following apology: "I hate calling you when I need help but I didn’t know what else to do." She explained that while one of her children was showering, she discovered wet carpet and pad by the shower and there was mold on the subfloor of her second story bathroom. The drywall was also rotted at the base and there was mold on the exterior and in the wall cavity.
Next she anxiously explained that she probably compounded the problem by removing the water, the moldy pad, cleaned the subfloor and placed a fan in the area for drying. After doing these normal homeowner activities (I assured her) she called her insurance company. They informed her that she probably spread the mold by using the fan and that there was a limited amount of coverage for mold remediation. They offered to send out a leak detection company to determine the source of the water damage. Then she called me.
I take many of these calls at SOS and there is a common issue: Homeowners of all ages and capacity have no idea what to do when they encounter either water damage alone or water damage and active growing mold. I told my niece that I was going to broadcast my message to her and others in hopes of helping those faced with these situations. For those of you who hate bullet points – sorry:
- Don't panic. Find the source of the water and turn it off. In this instance, she stopped the shower and the water stopped. In worse case scenarios, you may have to turn off the main water supply. Find out where that is before you need to know!
- If you find mold in any of the damaged areas, remove the water but proceed carefully with the steps listed below. When the area is wet, the mold is contained in the water and wet surfaces. When the surfaces begin to dry, the mold spores can easily become airborne and spread to other areas of the structure (my niece thought she did a bad thing by using a fan to dry the wet areas – yep!).
- Remove as much standing water as possible: rags or towels to absorb excess water; a wet/dry or shop vacuum, mops, whatever. Obviously this is easier to do on hard surfaces but it is also effective on carpet.
- If the carpet is wet, the pad below the carpet acts like a sponge. You can lift the carpet off the pins on the tack strip when carpet is wet (it grows a bit with water). SOS crew use 5 gallon buckets to collect small sections of pad (and the water) to remove it from the area.
- If you find a lot of mold on the subfloor, walls, baseboard or other surfaces, cover (contain) it with plastic and have it removed professionally. Likely, you will also have the problem in the wall cavity or cavities nearby. Having the moldy areas of the structure removed properly and professionally will not normally exceed your limited coverage for mold.
- If you can live with the wet areas for a short period of time (4-6 hours) it is often best to have a professional restoration company handle the claim from the beginning. You are not required to use the insurance company's vendor if you have a qualified company you prefer. Look for members of the Restoration Industry Association (www.restorationindustry.org) or the IICRC (www.iicrc.org) for professionally trained technicians to assist you.
Many professional restorers have associates throughout the US that they can refer. I connected my niece with a longtime friend and professional in her area whose staff was at her home within hours. Not only did they handle the entire loss, start to finish, but they also presented the correct information to the insurance company so that they covered all of the loss except her deductible.
How do you know you are working with a professional restoration company? They contract with you directly, work for you (not the insurance company) and provide you with an itemized invoice for payment that details the services provided. There are some very good professional companies that participate in the insurance vendor programs but they are managed and restricted by third party administrators, much like managed medical plans. These programs were instituted to save the insurance company money and that is the bottom line.
