Flooding is a natural calamity in Hawaii, which is beyond the control of any man, and it is almost impossible to predict its occurrence with accuracy. Damages caused to your property due to occurrence of flood can be from moderate to high and so it becomes difficult to restore the damages without a proper insurance cover. Nowadays, it is always advisable to obtain a flood insurance coverage for your property in order to be prepared for such adverse situations.

Flood damage restoration is a procedure of restoring the damaged property to its original pre-incident condition. If your property is damaged by flood then you can restore it by yourself but if the damage is severe, you can also hire some professionals who specialize in flood & water damage restoration. Many firms have great amount of experience in dealing with issues related to flood damage restoration or recovery.

Hawaii Flood Damage Restoration

Following are some important steps that you need to remember during the Flood damage restoration process:

• If you already have a flood insurance coverage, then contact the insurance company and notify them about the damages.
• If you are planning to restore the damages by yourself then first thing you need to do is thoroughly inspect the water damage and note them down if necessary. Remove all the damaged items such as carpets, furniture, electronic goods, etc and keep them outside the house but do not dispose them until the insurance company properly accesses the damage.
• It is always advisable to get the help of some professional flood damage control personnel. As there are many firms that specialize in water damage restoration service, it is necessary to appoint such a firm that has a good amount of experience as well as wide technical expertise. You can always obtain reliable information about such flood damage restoration firms by browsing the internet and you can obtain some references from your insurance agent too.
• Be sure that you appoint a firm only after carefully scrutinizing the services offered by them and you need to check their fee structure. If possible, just compare the services as well as the fee structure of such firms to facilitate a comparison.
• After you have appointed a Hawaii flood damage restoration firm, you should constantly communicate with them to make sure that all the restoration work is being carried on properly. Just make sure that floors, carpets, furniture, etc are sanitized and take care that the molds are not formed as they complicate the clean up procedure.

You cannot avert the damages due to flood, but you should always be prepared to face such a crisis!

Water & Flood Damage Hawaii – Call MD Cleaning and Restoration anytime 24/7 if you need assistance!

“My washing machine supply line burst and flooded the first floor of my house. Will my insurance pay to dry the structure and replace damaged furniture?”

Yes. Your standard homeowner’s policy is designed to cover losses created by a single, onetime event such as a pipe bursting or a drain line backup. Even if you live in an apartment and the water originated from another unit, your homeowners policy will cover your loss. Once your claim has been paid, your insurance carrier will most likely subrogate against the insurance policy of the homeowner where the loss originated. This will reimburse your carrier for your payout, and eliminate the possibility of your premium increasing. In either case, you will be responsible for paying your deductible, at least initially.

“I have a big patch of mold growing on my bedroom ceiling, will insurance pay for it to be removed, and fix whatever caused the mold?”

Most likely, no. Due to extremely high payouts on mold damage claims in the late 1990?s and early 2000?s, mold damage has been excluded from standard insurance policies. However, it is always recommended that you contact your insurance carrier to come and take a look at the situation before making any judgements of your own. You may have coverage your weren’t aware of, or the loss may be caused by something that is covered, such as an acute roof leak. If the drywall on your ceiling is currently wet from a roof leak caused by heavy rains and wind, and thus has begun to grow mold, it is possible that your insurance policy will pay to replace the drywall and fix the roof. However, mold-related clean up such as containment, HEPA filtration, Personal Protective Equipment, and decontamination efforts may not be covered under the policy.

If you do want to have mold coverage for the future, you can purchase a mold rider to your policy for an additional premium. This offers coverage for mold-related damages to you home and personal property, to a certain extent. It is important that you read and understand exactly what the mold rider covers, because it does have its limits and you need to be aware of what those are.

“It rained very heavily last night, and water built up in my backyard and came into my living room. Now my carpet is soaking wet, and there’s silt and mud all over. What should I do, and will it be covered?”

First, call MD Cleaning and Restoration to respond to your loss and initiate mitigation efforts such as water extraction and decontamination cleaning. Depending on the size of the affected area and the damage sustained, these initial services should fall within $500-$1000, your average homeowners insurance policy deductible. Water that builds up outside and then enters your home is considered rising flood water, and could be highly contaminated. This initial response and decontamination is critical to maintaining health and safety in your home.

Now to the insurance. Depending on exactly what happened to cause water to rise and enter your home, you may or may not have coverage. Standard homeowners policies do not include damages from “flood water” as covered losses. You would need flood insurance to cover a loss like this. For those of you who live in State of Hawaii-designated “flood zones”, you are familiar with this type of coverage because you are essentially forced to purchase it. In the event you have already hired a professional, and you do not have insurance coverage, you have the option to stop the professional services at anytime, and handle the rest of the loss yourself. Since you have only paid about the amount you would have paid for your insurance deductible, you can feel comfortable that you have done the right thing to initially protect your family’s health and safety, and now you can move forward with your own efforts if you feel so inclined. Of course, we always recommend the use of a professionally trained and certified restoration contractor no matter if you have insurance coverage or not.

The flip-side to this type of loss is if it is caused by some sort of negligence or accident. Perhaps your neighbor built a wall recently and covered or changed the drainage pattern around your house, causing water to build up and then enter your living room. This may be a covered loss, something that your carrier will most likely pursue reimbursement for from your neighbor. Of course, if they deny any fault, and their insurance carrier doesn’t want to pay, this could unfortunately end up in some sort of litigation. If it was you who built the wall, this also may be covered by your policy. I would definitely expect your premium to rise from a loss caused by your own negligence, though.

“I live in a high-rise apartment building, and came home from work last night to find my apartment flooded and water dripping from my bathroom ceiling like rain. My resident manager told me the water came from a pipe in the wall that is the responsibility of the building. Do I still need to call my insurance carrier, or will the building handle this for me?”

This is a very common problem, and extremely important for homeowners of apartment units to understand. In most cases, common-area elements such as plumbing supply lines and sewer lines that run through walls and plumbing chases (areas you can’t see and don’t have access to) are the responsibility of the building, and part of your monthly maintenance fee goes to pay for the insurance policy for the building. In the event there is a water loss originating from a common-area element, the building’s insurance policy will pay for all damages to all the units affected by that loss. However, and this is most important, the unit owners that are affected by this loss, and receive payment from the building’s insurance carrier, are responsible for paying the building’s insurance policy deductible. The deductible for apartment buildings can range from $5,000 on the low end, to $50,000 on the high end. The percentage of this deductible that each unit owner is responsible for depends on the percentage of the insurance payout they received. This can amount to several thousand dollars per homeowner, and can be a major blow to the wallet for a water loss that wasn’t even caused by you.

The answer; purchase an HO6 homeowners insurance policy immediately if don’t already have one. In an event such as the one described above, your HO6 homeowners policy would pay for your portion of the building’s deductible, and you would only be responsible for your smaller homeowners policy deductible. This could mean thousands of dollars in savings for you, and a smooth restoration process.

If you have any other insurance questions or information to share, please sign in and post it in the comment section below.

In Hawaii, because of the excellent trade winds and beautiful weather, many bathrooms are built with only a window to evacuate moist air. This is all that is required by building code, but in many cases, it is not enough. Warm, moist air rises, and condensates on the ceiling above the shower and throughout the bathroom area. Without proper ventilation to evacuate this air, microbial growth can occur.

Is this dangerous?

It can be. Mold is an allergen, and everyone has a different reaction to amplified microbial growth. There are several factors to take into consideration when trying to determine if this growth is a danger to the occupants of a residential structure. Dangerous or not, the original design of the house most certainly did not include the presence of amplified microbial growth on the bathroom ceiling.

What do I do?

The simple answer is, remove it. But there are right and wrong ways of doing this. The proper procedure for removing surface mold growth is to wipe it away with a damp cloth. You can use water and a bit of dish washing soap to accomplish this task. The EPA does not recommend using chemicals. Most importantly, DO NOT spray anything on the growth in an attempt to “kill” it or bleach it. Spraying microbial growth with a mist-type sprayer will only dislodge the spores into the air where you can breathe them. Remember that mold spores are microscopic, so when you can see little colonies of mold growing on your bathroom ceiling, they could already contain millions of spores.

If you are going to clean your ceiling, it would be wise to wear a respirator to protect yourself from accidentally inhaling any mold spores. The proper mask is an N95, which filters particles as small as mold spores. Standard painter’s dust masks are not suitable for this task. N95 masks can be found at your local hardware store. You should also wear some type of rubber gloves, as mold spores can be absorbed into the body through the skin.

Once you wipe the surface of the ceiling clean, you may notice that the black spots haven’t gone away completely. This is probably because the mold has embedded itself in the paint and has stained the ceiling. If this is the case, you may look into repainting the ceiling with a medium or high-gloss paint which has excellent moisture resistance. This will help keep moisture from penetrating into the paint and thus deter future microbial growth. For even better resistance, prime the ceiling with an antimicrobial primer such as Kilz. This can also be found at your local hardware store.

How do I prevent this in the future?

If you are looking for a more long term solution, install a mechanical vent fan. Make sure to run the fan for at least 20 minutes after you have completed your shower and have exited the bathroom. Many people have vent fans but still have mold problems in their bathrooms. This is because they shut off the fan when they leave the room. This does not allow enough time to evacuate all the moist air. If you are concerned with remembering to turn the fan back off, you can always install a timer switch to shut off the fan automatically.

Bathrooms are a perfect environment for microbial growth, and require unique solutions and preventative maintenance that aren’t normally required in other parts of a home. If you have any questions on how to better equip your bathroom to resist microbial growth, give us a call, or post a comment below.  We can definitely help you with mold removal!

In order to address these issues, we not only need to know where the water came from, but what did it pass through before it entered the structure. According to the IICRC S500 – Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Water Damage Restoration, rainwater by itself is considered Category 1 water, water with little or no contamination. If rainwater enters your home directly through the windows, or through a leak in your roof (as long as your roof is clean), it is possible to restore wet material to its original condition by the use of forced-air or open-air drying methods.

However, if the rainwater built up outside the house in the lawn or on the street, then made its way into the structure, this is now considered “rising flood water”, or Category 3 water. This water is deemed heavily contaminated, and any non-structural building material that absorbs such water should be removed from the home and discarded. Material such as carpet and padding, drywall, laminate flooring, and pressed-wood cabinets cannot be effectively decontaminated by cleaning methods, and therefore should be removed and disposed. In addition, it is necessary to access the structure behind or beneath these materials in order to decontaminate it properly. Once this process is complete, new finish materials can be installed.

Do you need a professional? Maybe. Professionals have the tools to inspect your home completely and locate any hidden or obscure areas of water damage. Contrary to popular belief, it is not possible to “feel” moisture in drywall, and in many cases the walls and wooden framing of a water damaged home can remain wet for weeks. It only takes a few days for microbial growth to begin, and for this reason it is very important to locate all water damaged areas and get them drying quickly.

In the case of a Category 3 loss, the restoration process is basically demolition, decontamination, and rebuilding. Keep in mind though, that once drywall and flooring are removed from the home, the framing and sub floor need to dry completely before installing new finish materials. If the structure is not dry, and new finish materials are installed, it is possible to trap moisture in these areas and this can lead to microbial growth and wood rot. In addition, Category 3 water is presumed contaminated, therefore it is critical to protect yourself when handling building materials and other water damaged items in this environment. Proper use of PPE (personal protective equipment) is required for your safety when demolishing and cleaning a Category 3 contaminated structure. If you do not feel comfortable doing this type of work safely, call a professional.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, investigate the cause of your water damage incident and address it properly and completely. Assume it is going to rain even harder the next time, and you want to protect your home from this type of damage in the future. If you are unsure of how to fix the problem, consult a general contractor, home inspector, or water damage restoration professional to get some opinions and ideas. In many cases, the solution to a water damage problem is multifaceted, and involving several professionals can be a great asset to the health, safety, and integrity of your home.