What Do I Do If My Basement Floods?

11/7/2022 (Permalink)

If you have a flooded basement, call SERVPRO of Northwest and Northeast Cincinnati.

What to Do When Your Basement Floods

When your basement floods, it can be a serious problem. It can damage your belongings, cause mold to grow, and create a breeding ground for rodents and other pests. But luckily there are some steps you can take to make sure the water doesn’t get too deep or stay in your basement for a long time.

Find the Source

First, it's important to find the source of your problem. This is an easy task if you can easily identify where the water is coming from. But sometimes, your basement will flood without any obvious cause.

When this happens, it's time to do some detective work and figure out what caused the water to appear in your basement:

• Check that there aren't any leaks or drips from other parts of your house or yard. You may have noticed that a leaky pipe or broken sprinkler head has been causing damage for weeks now and just didn't know about it!
• Check all of your sump pump systems and make sure they're working properly; if not, fix them immediately so you won't have any more problems later on down the road (like when winter comes).
• If there are no apparent causes for why this happened (like faulty plumbing), then something must be wrong with either how much rain fell overnight/weekend/etc., how much snow melted during this same period too...and so forth!

Turn Off your Electricity

Turn off the main breaker at the service panel, or if you cannot see the meter box, turn off all individual circuit breakers one by one until no lights are on in your basement. If you are unable to find any kind of power switch for the main breaker or individual breakers, call an electrician to help with this step.

Once electricity is off and your appliances have been removed from wet areas, it's safe to begin cleaning up your basement.

Clear Out As Many Things As Possible

If the water is rising, don't risk leaving your valuables behind. As soon as you spot a leak, clear out appliances or collectibles immediately if they're in harm's way. You can also take pictures of what’s there before you pack them up and store them elsewhere. 

If you have to leave your home because of flooding, make sure to bring along important documents (like insurance papers) and photos with you so that they're not lost in the chaos. Once everything has been moved away from danger, don't forget to take any pets with you!

Check with Your Insurance Company

The first thing you should do if you know your basement is flooding is to make sure that everyone in the house is safe. Once everyone has been accounted for and the immediate danger has passed, the next step would be to assess the damage. If it’s not too severe, then there are ways for you to fix it yourself – but only if there isn’t any water leaking into other rooms or causing mold growth.

If there's no way around hiring a professional contractor (for example, if there is water seeping into other parts of your home), it might be worth contacting one sooner rather than later so they can help prevent further damage from occurring while they do their job. Either way, make sure that everyone who works in this area has proper safety equipment and that nobody's at risk of falling through any weakened floors or stairs into an unsafe space below them!

If you do find yourself with a flooded basement, it’s important to remember these steps to get you through this tough time. A basement is one of the most vulnerable parts of your home, so take steps now to make sure you don’t have to deal with this problem in the future, if possible. And if disaster does strike? Don’t panic—remember our tips for dealing with flooding and follow them closely! 

The best piece of advice we have for a flooded basement is to call SERVPRO of Northwest and Northeast Cincinnati. We will be there to restore your Cincinnati home quickly.