Atlanta Water Damage Restoration

Warning: Freezing temperatures can cause frozen pipes and water damage in Atlanta over the next few nights!

City of Atlanta Water Utilities are encouraging homeowners to be extra careful to avoid having frozen pipes burst. Water Utility Departments all over the country are being inundated with calls and complaints about frozen and burst water pipes.

Atlanta is no different as we receive our second week of  low temperatures of under 20 degrees. Today Atlanta meteorologists describe it as feeling zero degrees with the wind chill factors. Since it will remain bitingly cold through next week here are a few helpful reminders to prevent your pipes from freezing, bursting and causing water damage. Remember that clean up is only half the battle if your pipes freeze. What you also have to worry about is the water damage restoration work that may be required. Failure to clean up correctly could result in mold problems later on.

Here are a few helpful reminders to avoid your pipes from freezing:

• Outside hose connections are the most susceptible since they are open to the elements.  Exterior weathr proof insulated bibs can be purchased from Home Depot or Lowes to help keep these insulated from the harsh wind

• Do you have any exposed pipes in an unheated garage or basement? Wrap these with pipe insulation (also available from Home Depot). If you can’t get out then take some old news paper and wrap several layers of the newspaper around their tightly.

• Pick up some heat tape that you can plug into a nearby outlet or receptacle. This heat tape will keep the pipes nice and toasty!

• What about letting your faucets drip at night? This could be a good idea. Experts tell us not let the the stream of water get larger than the lead of a pencil.

• Do you know where your master water valve is? You better locate it now before you have a problem. Look  where pipes enter a garage, crawl space or basement. If your pipes break you will need to shut this off as quickly as possible to avoid water damage.

• What if my pipes freeze, can I use an open flame to melt them? While this might sound smart at first… don’t do it! It can easily cause a fire or actually damage the pipe connections and fittings. (Many pipes are made of pvc and could easily be damaged.)

Take this advice so you do not have to worry about your pipes freezing over the next few days and then having to suffer water damage in Atlanta.

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atlanta flood cleanup day 1

It is a beautiful thing to see neighbors helping one another. These volunteer workers helped this family with the arduous task of removing the wet sheetrock, insulation and duct work in their home. It all had to be removed and thrown into huge dumpsters. Listen to the home owner as she relates that a piece of insulation weighs over 50lbs when wet!
You can not fix a home until all the old wet items that can breed mold and bacteria are removed. As you can imagine this involves a lot of scrubbing with bleach! Electrical wiring and circuit breaker panels that have been wet will also need to be replaced too.

These homes not only had their basements flooded but they had another 3 to 4 feet of water on the first floor.This is all part of the

water damage Atlanta cleanup that will go on for the next few months.

In this 2009 Atlanta flood video you will see footage of the poor family whose Virginia Highlands house is at the lowest point of the neighborhood cul-de-sac. All of the water runoff comes gushing into their garage like a a raging river. She looks out of her front porch and out of her rear deck and it looks like her home was built in the middle of lake Lanier! One can only imagine what the Atlanta water damage repairs are going to be like. Poor family!

Here is a video of day 2 of the flood clean up in Clarksdale, GA. It gives you an idea to the extent of cleanup needed after a flood recedes. Volunteers describe the water damage here as looking like like someone ransacked the place with water.  In this video they are shown cleaning out the lower level and first floor of a home. Everything had to ripped out including the drywall, HVAC ducts & the insulation too. Hardwood floors had to be lifted as they buckled and were still wet underneath.

Water restoration cleanup like this requires that you have to eliminate every single thing that could trap moisture and allow mold to grow. Otherwise you will be installing new drywall, pain and floors over the moldy infrastructure. This in turn will cause health problems in the future.

Learn more about Atlanta water damage restoration.