New-Old Water Damage – Help from Water Damage Repair Experts

When you have clogged bathtubs, toilets or sinks that flood, it’s obvious that you’re in need of water damage repair. Nonetheless, your house can experience water damage in ways that aren’t as obvious. Since you have plumbing running all over your house, you can have a pipe leaking or a buildup of condensation between your walls or ceilings. It’s an alarming incident because this isn’t visible- you won’t know until you there’s water damage, and then it’s difficult to identify how long the issue has persisted.

For these spaces that can’t be seen, it’s challenging to establish how old the damage produced by water is. Nevertheless, you could have a leaky pipe that was slightly dripping for awhile but because it’s not in plain sight, you don’t know how long. There’s no way to check the precise time of the problem, but there are some approaches to estimate the age of the water damage.

Evaluate How Old Your Water Damage is with This Guidance

By following the step-by-step process listed below, you’ll be able to indicate the age of the damage caused by water:

  • History of the House: Keep track of any spots on your walls or ceilings and take into account any outside influences such as heavy rain. Water spots and damages can take months to appear if it’s a slight leak. Older properties could have some water spots and damages that were sustained previously. So it’s important to keep track of the spots you perceive while determining whether this is new water damage or old water damage.
  • History of the House: An older house could already have some previous damage caused from water, so it’s important to keep track of what’s there and to note if the damage changes over a period of time. Tracking the weather is a great idea as well, because if you have a a slow dripping pipe, it can take months for a water spot to surface. Keeping track of your water damages can save you a lot of hassle when pinpointing whether your water damage is old or new.
  • Touch the Spot: Go on and touch the spot, because this will inform you a lot about the age of the damage produced by water. A new spot will feel wet but your drywall or ceiling will still feel the same, while an old spot will be soft and spongy because your material would have taken in a good amount of water.
  • Look for Rings: If you see just a dark spot with no rings around it, this indicates that the damage produced by water is new. Old damage produced by water will have rings around it, and like trees, the more rings indicates the age. Discolored rings exhibits that the area has been saturated, dried, saturated, dried, etc.
  • Examine the Materials: Get to know the material around your home, because water and moisture can become trapped by thick paint and tiles. And if spots created by water show up through these, this means the accumulation of moisture has been lingering for awhile.
  • Mold Inspection: If you find that bacteria, or mold, is there, the damage produced by water has been there for approximately two to three days.
  • Decay: Your material doesn’t usually rot by the first occurrence of water damage. And when there has been rot, this means your material has been vulnerable to repeated flooding or standing water.

Get an Experienced Water Damage Repair Specialist

For all your water damage repair emergencies, contact Paul Davis. When there’s a pipe dripping that you can’t identify, it’s fundamental to reach out to a professional. The professional team at Paul Davis has the know-how and response time you need to maintain your house. To find a local franchise in your area, contact us at (585) 647-9933 and we’ll get an expert for your assistance.