Is It Dangerous for Homeowners to Do Their Own Stormwater Removal in Kansas City?

8/15/2021 (Permalink)

Has your area recently been affected by storm damage? Team SERVPRO can help with cleanup and water removal. We are standing by to take your call.

Take Advantage of SERVPRO’s Skilled Crews and High-Capacity Equipment for Storm Flooding Mitigation and Remediation in Kansas City

Property owners naturally feel responsible for repairing any kind of harm to their dwelling, but Kansas City stormwater removal is a formidable task. Torrential rains and overland flooding can quickly fill all the recesses and cavities in your home’s lower levels. A leaking roof from storms activity might funnel water over ceilings and between walls, with the fluids migrating unchecked throughout the house.

Why Is Professional Assessment Necessary to Locate Trapped Water?

When water becomes trapped inside building structures in Kansas City, the potential for structural collapse increases rapidly. When SERVPRO crews answer a call for help, the first task on the agenda is a safety hazard assessment. In addition to controlling for slips and falls, contaminated water, and electrical shock, our project manager evaluates structures for hidden caches of water by looking for signs:

• Bulging ceilings or walls

• New staining on surfaces

• “Sweating” on surfaces

• Pooling of water on lower levels without overland flooding or foundation seepage
• Infrared imaging indicating fluids behind walls, under floors, in cinder block foundations without with flooding or seepage from saturated ground

How Do SERVPRO Professionals Manage Safe Stormwater Removal?

Some significant controlled demolition will become necessary to release the water and open up wet cavities for effective structural drying. Trained IICRC-certified professionals should perform the intentional demolition to limit the chance of structural collapse. Controlled demolition methods include:

• Punching weep holes in ceilings, from the edge of the room to the center

• Removal of baseboards to cut or drill drainage holes to release stormwater between walls

• Sawing of flood cuts several inches above floodlines between studs, taking professional care to avoid wiring and other utility conduits

• Removing disintegrated drywall and plaster during the flood cut process while opening up wet spaces for better airflow to facilitate rapid drying

• Drilling holes in mortar joints to remove stormwater from cement block cells and brickwork

Partner with SERVPRO of Kansas City Midtown for stormwater removal. Call (816) 895-8890 day or night to request assistance.