Standing water in the basement gets worse every hour it sits. We bring high volume pumps out day or night, get the water gone, and then find out how it got in so it does not happen again next storm.
Water in a basement is not a static problem. Drywall wicks it upward within hours. Anything on the floor made of particle board is finished quickly. Mould gets going within a day or two in the right conditions, and once it is into cavities and insulation the job stops being about water and starts being about remediation.
Getting the water out fast is the cheapest thing you will do in this whole situation. Everything after it costs more.
Water and electricity in the same room is the first thing we look at. If circuits are live near the water line, that gets dealt with before anyone wades in, including you. Please do not go down there to move things while the power is on.
High volume pumps that handle debris, not the small utility pump most people have in the garage. That matters, because flood water in a basement is never clean and a pump that clogs on silt is no help to anyone.
This is the part that gets skipped elsewhere, and it is the part that decides whether you do this again. Storm water coming in from outside, groundwater through the slab or walls, a failed sump pump, or sewage backing up through the floor drain are four different problems with four different answers.
Pumping removes the standing water. It does not remove what the water left behind. If it came up through the drains, the space needs proper cleaning and sanitising before anyone treats it as usable again.
If it is safe to reach the panel from a dry spot, cut power to the basement. Stop running water anywhere in the house if the backup is coming up through a drain. Do not wade into standing water to rescue belongings. Photograph everything you can from the stairs. Your insurer will want it and it costs you nothing to take too many pictures.
Low lying neighbourhoods near the shore take on ground and surface water during heavy weather, and that is well understood by anyone who lives there. What surprises people is how often the water is not coming from outside at all.
A blocked main sewer line will push waste water up through the lowest opening in the house, which is nearly always the basement floor drain. It looks like flooding. It is actually a blockage, and no amount of pumping fixes it while the line is still closed. In heavy rain the city system itself can surcharge and send water back the same way.
The other frequent cause is simply a sump pump that failed, or one that had no power during the outage that came with the storm. Worth testing yours before the season rather than during it.
It changes what happens next, so we establish it early. Rain or groundwater is unpleasant but manageable, and much of what got wet can dry out. Water that came up through drains carries contamination, and porous items it touched (carpet, padding, soft furnishings, cardboard) should go rather than be dried and kept.
If there is any doubt, we treat it as the worse case. That is the right way round to be wrong.
As fast as anyone can. Be aware that during a major weather event every company on the island is fielding calls at once, so call early rather than waiting to see whether it gets worse.
Often one to three hours depending on depth and access. Deep water in a large basement takes longer, and if a blocked line caused it, that has to be cleared too or it simply refills.
For a few inches of clean water, maybe. For anything deeper, anything with debris in it, or anything that might be sewage, rented utility pumps clog fast and put you in contact with water you should not be in.
Depends on the policy and the cause. Sewer backup is often a separate rider from flood cover. Document everything before and during, and keep receipts. We can provide clear notes on what we found and what caused it.
If the cause was a blocked or damaged line, yes. Fixing that fixes the flooding. If it is groundwater or storm surge, we will be straight with you about what is a drainage problem and what is a bigger conversation about the building itself.
Drain backing up right now?