What the crew does, and what it means for you
| What happens |
What it means for you |
| The basement is metered along the walls and the slab, not just where the puddle was |
Water that ran behind the paneling or under the floor gets found before it feeds mold |
| Plaster, lath, and old wood trim are read with a meter before anyone pulls them |
A hundred-year-old wall gets an answer instead of an assumption |
| Air movers and dehumidifiers go where the readings say, in a cellar that cannot dry on its own |
A stone foundation that never fully dries in summer is dried on a plan, not a guess |
| The water is classified: clean supply, gray, or sewage and street water |
A combined-sewer backup gets protective handling and disposal instead of a mop and bleach |
| Frozen-pipe and vacant-unit losses are traced back to how long the water ran |
The scope covers the days the house sat wet, not just what you saw when you opened the door |
| Photos, moisture logs, and an itemized scope from the first visit |
Your adjuster gets dates and numbers, not a story from memory |
Before you start hauling things up the stairs
Shut the water off if you can reach the valve safely. Move what you can lift off the wet floor and get the boxes off the slab. Photograph every room before anything goes to the curb. Then call us and say what you found. You do not need to know whether the job is extraction, drying, or a sewer cleanup.
What Boston does to a house
Most of the housing here went up between 1880 and 1925: triple-deckers in Dorchester and Somerville, brick rowhouses in the South End and Charlestown, two-families in Roslindale and Medford. They sit on fieldstone and brick foundations that pass groundwater at the mortar joints, and nearly every one has a basement. The plumbing is a century of patched cast iron and galvanized steel, with radiator pipes running through cold outside walls.
Then there is the weather. The winter of 2015 dropped about 110 inches of snow on the city, the most ever recorded here, and ice dams sent meltwater through ceilings for weeks. On February 4, 2023, the temperature at Logan hit ten below zero, and pipes and sprinkler lines split in houses, hospitals, and theaters across the region. On January 4, 2018, a nor'easter pushed Boston Harbor to its highest tide on record, and seawater ran down Seaport Boulevard and across Long Wharf into garages and lower floors. On an ordinary hard rain, the combined sewers in the older neighborhoods back up into the lowest drain in the house.
Water and sewer inside the city come from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, which handles main breaks and backups on the street side. Rebuilding plaster, plumbing, or wiring usually needs a permit from the Inspectional Services Department. The surrounding cities run their own desks, and the area pages name the right one for your town.
Insurance, without the promises
Many homeowner policies cover sudden water damage such as a burst pipe. Sewer backup and groundwater seepage are often left out unless a rider was added, and a frozen pipe in an unheated unit can be handled differently. Nobody on this site can tell you what your policy will pay. What the crew can do is document readings, photos, and an itemized scope so the conversation with your adjuster is about facts.
Where the calls come from
Dorchester, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, South Boston, East Boston, and Charlestown inside the city. Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Malden, Everett, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop to the north. Quincy and Weymouth down the South Shore. See the full list of nearby communities on the areas page.
Call (857) 524-9927 now and tell us what you see. An independent local water damage provider anywhere in Suffolk County or the inner-ring cities takes it from there.
Standing by