Water damage restoration and cleaning in Jersey City, NJ

The Hudson River and Upper New York Bay are to the east, the Hackensack River and Newark Bay to the west, and the ground between them ranges from tidal flat to the ridge of the Heights.

That range is the reason no single description of the work fits this city. Downtown and Paulus Hook hold early nineteenth century brownstones on low reclaimed ground. The Heights sits on the Palisades ridge. Journal Square, Bergen Lafayette, Greenville and the West Side each carry their own mix of nineteenth century tenements, two and three family houses and later apartment buildings, and the waterfront holds modern high rise towers. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 is the storm the low ground measures itself against.

Tidal water is category 3 before it reaches the door

Water that arrives on a tide off the Hudson, the Hackensack or Newark Bay has crossed marsh, industrial ground and the storm system, which makes it grossly contaminated under the ANSI IICRC S500 standard. There is no version of that job where soaked carpet and pad go back down. Porous materials the water touched are removed, the structure is cleaned, and only then does drying equipment go in. That decision is made at the door on the source of the water, and the reason for it is written on the estimate.

In a tower the water uses the stack

On the waterfront a failed supply riser, a burst flexible connector or an overflowing fixture on an upper floor sends water into the shaft, along the corridor and down a vertical line of apartments. It is often reported first by a resident three or four floors below who has no idea where it came from. Mapping the affected units comes before any equipment is placed, and the file is built per unit so building management, each resident and more than one insurer can read the part that concerns them.

Brownstones, tenements and the plaster inside them

The nineteenth century stock in Downtown, Bergen Lafayette and the Heights is masonry with plaster on wood lath, deep stud bays and long joist runs, which the S500 standard treats as class 4 material because it holds water inside the assembly and gives it back over days.

Named monitoring points are marked on the first visit, penetrating readings are taken at each, and a control point is chosen in an unaffected part of the same building. The wall is closed when the readings match the control taken in an unaffected part of the same building. In an attached brownstone that also means checking both faces of a party wall where access allows, because water inside a shared wall does not stop at the property line.

Documented per space in a city of shared buildings

Most of the buildings here hold more than one household, so the documentation is built one file per affected space. Each unit gets its own photographs taken before anything is moved, its own named monitoring points and its own dated daily readings.

The business does not file, adjust or negotiate the claim, and it does not advise a tenant or an owner on what their policy covers. Rising surface water is excluded from almost every standard homeowners policy and sits under a separate National Flood Insurance Program policy.

Mold in an occupied apartment building

The Environmental Protection Agency asks for water damaged areas and items to be dried within 24 to 48 hours to prevent mold growth. In a stacked building that window applies to every unit the water reached, not only the one that called. A unit found on the third day has been wet for three days, and by then the drying window has closed on it.

Remediation follows ANSI IICRC S520 and names the condition found: normal fungal ecology, settled spores and fragments, or actual growth. Containment, negative air pressure and HEPA filtration keep the work inside the affected unit and out of shared corridors. Post remediation verification is provided in writing, and no state mold license is claimed because New Jersey issues none. Products used in occupied buildings are EPA registered and described as safe around pets and children, the estimate is free and written before work begins with no hidden fees, and the business is IICRC certified, licensed and insured and family owned since 2010.