These are the questions homeowners in Cherry Hills Village and the surrounding suburbs ask most when they call about water in the house. Each answer starts with the answer.
Turn off the breaker for the basement if the panel is upstairs or you can reach it dry. Close the main on the house side of the Denver Water meter if the water came from a pipe. Get rugs, boxes, and furniture off the floor, photograph the water line on every wall, and leave the carpet down. Then call and say what you see.
Usually from the ground. Houses near the High Line Canal and Little Dry Creek sit in soil that fills from spring through early fall, and water finds the cold joint where the slab meets the wall. Basement flooding cleanup starts with pulling the pad and metering every wall on the level, because ground water rarely stays at one spot.
Not below the surface. Carpet pad, the bottom foot of drywall, and the sill plate hold water for weeks in a cool basement with the doors shut. Structural drying runs air movers and dehumidifiers against daily readings until the materials match a dry wall upstairs, and the readings, not your hand, say when it is done.
You can have both rolling toward the house at the same time. Close the main and leave it closed until the plumber has found every split, because a second section can let go as the wall warms. Frozen pipe cleanup covers the wall, the floor, and the room below while the plumber handles the pipe.
It is if the water reached the house. A backflow sits above ground on the supply side, and when it splits the water runs at full pressure toward the foundation. If the basement wall on that side is wet, the crew treats it like any other basement flood and meters the wall from inside.
More than the room you saw. Water from a boiler loop follows the framing down through the floor, the ceiling below, and the wall cavities between them. Burst pipe water damage work starts at the top and meters every level below the split before anyone decides what comes out.
The roof is the first problem, and the roofer handles it. The wet attic insulation, the ceiling drywall, and the wall the water ran down are the second problem, and they do not dry on their own once the roof is patched. Roof leak water damage work covers the inside.
Call. A supply line under the slab or inside a wall can leak for weeks before a floor feels warm or a wall softens. Leak detection narrows the source with meters and thermal imaging before anyone cuts plaster or tile, and the sooner it is found the less there is to dry.
The answer turns on the path the water took and on the wording of your policy, which this site has not seen. A pipe that split or a tank that let go is usually handled as a sudden loss. Ground water through the foundation and water rising through a floor drain are often excluded unless you carry a water backup endorsement. Have the provider hand you photos, the readings, and a written scope to give your adjuster.
It is a different job. Anything that came up a floor drain or out of a sewer line counts as contaminated water, so the carpet, pad, and drywall it reached are usually removed instead of dried. Keep children and pets off that level, do not run a household fan across it, and tell the person who answers exactly where the water came from so the provider arrives ready for it.
Often some of it, and the answer comes from the meter, not from the water line. Stone, tile, and solid hardwood on a slab can sometimes be dried in place; carpet pad and the bottom of the drywall usually cannot. Say what the finishes are when you call, because the crew brings different equipment for a stone floor than for carpet.
Not for the drying and cleanup. Replacing drywall, moving plumbing, or rewiring outlets usually needs a permit from the Cherry Hills Village building department, and Greenwood Village, Englewood, Littleton, Centennial, and Denver each run their own desk. The rebuild contractor pulls it. Each town's page on this site names its permit desk.
No price comes from this site, and no provider can put a figure on a job before the meters have been in the house. The volume, the number of days it sat, and whether it was supply water or drain water decide the scope. Ask for the scope on paper before anyone starts.
Call (720) 807-5901. Say which level is wet, whether the water has stopped, whether it came from a pipe, the roof, or the ground, and whether the basement is finished.