What happens on the first visit
The first trip is about getting water out of the house and keeping it from spreading into walls and subfloor. Expect the crew to:
- Confirm the source is off, or tell you to call a plumber or roofer if it is still running.
- Pump out standing water, then pull water out of carpet and pad with an extractor.
- Use moisture meters on walls, baseboards, cabinets and the subfloor to map how far the water wicked.
- Remove pad and the bottom of any drywall that is too wet to dry in place.
- Set up air movers and dehumidifiers and explain how long drying should take.
Drywall and wood pull water up from the floor for hours. Getting the standing water out early can mean cutting out a few inches of drywall instead of a few feet.
While you wait
- Turn off the main water valve if the leak is from a pipe, supply line, water heater or appliance. In many Forsyth County homes the main is in the garage, the basement or a box near the street.
- Shut off power to rooms where water is near outlets or cords, but only if the breaker panel is somewhere dry.
- Get rugs, electronics, paperwork and photos up off the floor.
- Take photos and video of every wet room before anything gets moved. Your adjuster will want them.
- Leave sewage and water that has sat for days alone. A household shop vac is not the tool for either.
Have this ready when you call
- What is leaking, if you know: a supply line, the water heater, a toilet, the roof, a crawl space or a drain.
- Whether the water is clean or looks and smells like sewage.
- Which rooms and floors are wet, including the crawl space or basement, and about how long it has been wet.
- Whether the main water valve is off and the power to wet rooms is off.
- Your road or subdivision in Cumming or Forsyth County, so a crew close to you picks up.
Most calls take a couple of minutes. Stay on the line and you will be matched with a local company that can send someone out.
Free to call. You are not signing up for anything.
Where water removal calls come from around Cumming
Most of the houses around Cumming went up after Georgia 400 reached Forsyth County, and a lot of them were built fast during the subdivision boom of the 1990s and 2000s. Those homes have plastic supply lines, upstairs laundry rooms and water heaters in attics or garages. When one of those fails on a second floor, the water comes down through the ceiling, which is why the first call is often about a stain spreading across the kitchen or living room ceiling.
The hills matter, too. Lots on the slopes around Sawnee Mountain, Big Creek and the roads down toward Lake Lanier often have walkout basements and finished terrace levels. Heavy summer storms push water against the uphill wall, and a clogged gutter or a downspout that empties next to the foundation can put water on a basement floor in an hour.
Older homes near downtown Cumming and along the state routes are more likely to sit over a crawl space. Water there is easy to miss until the floors feel soft or the house starts to smell musty.
Whatever the source, the work is the same: stop the water, get it out, and dry the structure before mold takes hold. In Georgia's humidity that clock is short. A crew can reach homes across the 30028, 30040 and 30041 ZIP codes, from Coal Mountain down to Sharon Springs.