DOES WATER DAMAGE DECREASE HOME VALUE?
Trying to sell your home can be a very complicated process with everything that can affect the value of your home. One of the things that most people don’t consider affecting a home’s value is water damage.
Does water damage decrease home value? Yes, water damage does decrease the value of your home if not remediated and repaired. The amount that the water damage decreases the value can be limited by identifying water damage, contacting a water restoration company, and repairing the water damage thoroughly and quickly. With increasing home values and a quality repair job, your home may not suffer any loss in value.
Types of Water Damage that Decrease the Value of Your Home
The value of your home can be greatly decreased by certain types of water damage. Detrimental water damage from things out of your control, such as the weather or pipes bursting, is the main concern. This water damage can have an immediate effect on your home’s value as well as long-term effects if not dealt with properly.
Here is a list of damage that can decrease the value of your home
- Structural Issues from Water Damage
- Foundation Issues from Water Damage
- Mold from Water Damage
Here is a breakdown of these types of damage and what you can do to make sure your home’s value doesn’t take a hit.
Structural Issues from Water Damage
When a storm or flood causes major water damage to your home, the structure of your home could have issues. Finding and addressing these structural compromises in the walls, floors, ceilings, and crawl spaces in your home can help to minimize the decrease in the value of your home.
If you suspect structural issues from water damage, it is important to inspect your home thoroughly for any structural damage, such as rotting wood, sagging beams, cracks in walls, and broken electrical fixtures. It is imperative to identify these points of water damage to limit the devaluing of your home.
Calling a home inspector or water restoration company to assess the damages to your home is a great first step if you are not able to find any of these major water damage points.
Foundation Issues from Water Damage
If you have had detrimental water damage from a flood or burst pipe, the water may have damaged your foundation. If you have a basement, floods can cause irreversible damage to the foundation. Checking your foundation for structural issues is imperative for maintaining the value of your home.
This can easily be the most expensive part of fixing your home after water damage. However, it is also the thing that could decrease the value of your home the most. Catching any foundation issues quickly keeps the cost for repairs lower. The longer that the foundation damage exists, the worse it could get.
Foundation issues are not something that you may be able to DIY. However, a disaster restoration company has the equipment to secure your home and repair the foundation after water damage occurs.
Mold from Water Damage
With all the water in your home from flood or sewer backup, there is a risk of mold beginning to grow in the walls and carpets. This side effect of water damage is just as bad as the damage itself.
Mold is not only harmful to your health, but it can soften the materials in your home, causing long term damage to the drywall, studs, and insulation in your walls. Mold feeds on the wood and drywall in your home and spreads into the materials that it eats through.
If you think you have mold in your home, seek help from a restoration company to take care of it. The sooner you get mold remediated, the better. Your health, the health of your family and pets, and the health of your home are at stake.
Prior to the restoration companies arrival you can utilize commercial grade disinfectant. It will effectively clean and disinfect hard surfaces. Industrial strength disinfectant cleaner powers through the worst of messes.
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Water Damage Restoration to Restore the Value of Your Home
Water damage can decrease the value of your home. However, water damage restoration can keep the devaluation to a minimum. Catching the water damage early, or taking steps to restore emergency water damage as soon as possible is vital to this minimization.
Water restoration companies offer a variety of services to restore your home after water damage occurs. The first step is to repair the structural damage to walls, ceiling, flooring, and fixtures.
Once the damaged materials are repaired or replaced, any mold that set into the carpet, drywall, and insulation must be remediated. After this, any foundation issues caused by the water damage are addressed and repaired to make sure the structure of your home is maintained.
Structural Repair After Water Damage
The first step of restoring your home after water damage is to pull out all the damaged wood, drywall, and carpet. If any of these materials are integral to the structure of your home, these must be replaced. Restoration companies are able to determine what needs to be replaced.
The water-damaged building materials are then disposed of by the restoration company. After a check for mold (and subsequent mold remediation if necessary), the new building materials are installed and finished. When they are done, you won’t be able to tell that there was ever water damage.
Mold Remediation After Water Damage
If mold is found during the inspection after water damage occurs, the disaster restoration company must remediate your home to get rid of the mold. This mold can be detrimental to your family and your health, so this step in the restoration process is vital.
Mold remediation is simply reversing the overgrowth of mold within the walls, ceiling, and flooring of your home. Mold releases spores into the air that are harmful to your lungs and must be destroyed to take the excess spores out of your home.
Some may be wondering why it is not mold removal. Mold spores are always in the air to some degree. There is no way to completely remove mold from a home. The science of removing mold is much more complex than “we cleaned it all up.”
Remediation is a better word for the mold removal service that is offered by disaster restoration companies. It is best described as the remedy for mold overgrowth within your home.
A disaster restoration company has the equipment and experience to remediate the mold from your home and make the air healthy to breathe again for you and your family.
Foundation Repair After Water Damage
Foundation issues are a major part of water damage restoration. If your foundation has issues, the work that the restoration company does to the structure of your home will be completely meaningless in a year or two. The foundation will continue to shift and cause more structural issues in your home.
Foundation issues are not always caused by water, but the water usually makes any foundation issues worse very quickly. If your foundation has shifted and small cracks have formed, water can get into those cracks and erode the foundation away, magnifying the signs of these issues throughout the walls and other parts of the house.
The signs of foundation issues are not always easy to spot. When you know what to look for, they will be very apparent. These signs include cracks in walls, sticky doors, doors unable to close, and uneven flooring. If you have any of these issues in your home, the foundation is most likely to blame.
Water damage may have caused these issues, but water damage will definitely make them worse. Make sure you contact a water restoration service to take care of your foundation.
Who to Contact to Repair Water Damage
As stated throughout the article, if you have water damage to your home, you need to contact a water restoration service to repair any damage that water has done. A simple Google search for “water damage restoration service near me” will return a list consisting of a number of companies. These companies can repair your home and remove all water and mold, bringing your home back to its full value, or close to it.
These companies are able to come out to your home and check for water damage, assess the extent of the damage. They can also give you a quote for how much it will cost to fix the damage. Also, they may be able to give you an estimate on how much the damage will decrease the value of your home. They specialize in water damage restoration, disaster restoration, and mold remediation. They will make sure your home is safe to live in after water has damaged the structure and brought the excess mold in with it.
Contact a qualified disaster restoration company today to get a quote on repairing the damage any flood, leak, or burst pipe has caused to your walls, ceiling, kitchen, bathroom, or flooring.
They can put your home back to its original state and to bring back the value of your home. Also, if you are in the market to buy a home in an area with a history of flooding or water damage. You should be sure to have a home inspection performed. As this can help save you money and worries in the future.
