Experiencing water damage in your home can quickly turn into the worst of nightmares. If you want to prevent massive health hazards and structural damage, it’s essential to act swiftly and take the proper steps to deal with water damage. However, before you can know what to do for water damage repair, it’s vital to know what are the different types of water damage.

If you’re a homeowner, it’s more than likely that you’ve had to deal with various kinds of water damage over the years. Water damage from roofing leaks is not only an ever-present threat but one of the most severe as well. Suppose your house has wooden floors, a common enough aesthetic that often spruces up a place. Water damage on wooden flooring can rot the floorboards in a matter of hours. Unless water damage repair is performed soon, it can even promote organic hazards like mold. From clean water damage to dirty water damage and even the hated blackwater damage, many different types of water damage you could be facing. Thus, if you want to be prepared for the eventuality of water damage, it’s vital to understand the differences between the several different types of water damage.

Why Is Water Damage Such A Large Threat?

Several factors pose significant threats to the safety and structural integrity of your home. There can be gradual damage over the years from harsh weather conditions. You can even have freak tornadoes or cyclones that can wreak massive havoc on your house. However, there’s something even more dangerous than that: water damage.

Water damage doesn’t just pose the most significant threat because the flooding can cause substantial personal injury. It’s the most concerning type of damage because you can’t even notice the signs of water damage most of the time. An insidious effect that chips away at the integrity of your house, proper maintenance is an absolute must to ward off the possibility of water damage.

A flooded basement isn’t just unsafe because of the dirty water. There’s also the possibility of being electrocuted if there are electrical outlets down there. Underground locations like basements can also grow mold from just a slight drip of water.

What Can Water Damage From Roof Leaking Do To You?

Something that makes water damage particularly harmful is that it can have a severe effect on any surface. Drywall suffers the most, with mold growing between the walls in many cases, which is a considerable health hazard. Foundations and basement floors are particularly susceptible to the effects of water damage too. Wood, which appears very tough initially, is very porous and doesn’t hold up to more than a few hours of water damage. Whether it’s clean water, dirty water, or blackwater damage, you can expect to see some of the following effects soon:

Your Ceiling Could Cave In

Water damage in the ceiling has the highest chance of personal injury. It could happen from many sources, like a burst pipe in the ceiling or poor waterproofing on bathroom or kitchen floors. If you see bulges in the ceiling or a steady drip of water from a particular spot that’s drooping, that area could suddenly burst or collapse altogether. This could easily damage other parts of the house or even hit a person and cause personal injury. Contacting our emergency plumbers as soon as possible is vital when you spot water damage on your ceiling.

Water Damage Makes Wood Rot And Lose Its Integrity

You’ll find wood everywhere in houses. Floors, ceilings, room partitions are all made out of wood. Even critical load-bearing posts, beams, and such are usually made out of food. You’ll also find many wooden furniture in and around houses, like almirahs, cabinets, tables, and chairs to go along with them. If a lot of wooden furniture is present in your home, it’s vital to take action in the first few hours. The sooner you can get the services of a plumber to fix your water damage problems, the cheaper it will be to repair or replace damaged sections.

Pooled Water Or Flooded Areas Could Become Electrified

It’s no secret that water and electricity never mix well. Pooled water from water damage could become even more problematic if exposed wiring in the area could electrify the entire pool of water. If the walls are wooden drywall, they might not be enough to save the wiring since water can seep through wooden walls in a matter of hours. Before you call a professional for conclusive water damage repair, you can go outside and turn off the electricity to your house, so there’s no element of harm to human life.

Water Damage Can Damage Your Plumbing Over Time

Your home’s plumbing is always behind the scenes, making sure that you get water everywhere you need it. Today’s preferred type of piping, Polyvinyl-Chloride pipes, can take a lot of punishment without taking any damage. However, if your house has older metal piping, water damage can easily contribute to the decay of these pipes. The main reason is that flood water contains things that your lines aren’t supposed to handle, depending on the type of water damage. Pipes exposed to the contaminants and pollutants in flood water can corrode over just a few years.

Consulting an online guide can give you a general idea of how water damage can harm your home, but in the end, the factor that plays the most considerable role is the type of water damage. Clean water damage requires minor maintenance and expense spent behind water damage repair. On the other hand, backwater damage from burst toilet plumbing can quickly rack up thousands of repairs, even more, if it stays long enough to cause toxic mold growth. Read on to know more about the different types of water damage.

What Are the Types of Water Damage?

A pipe has burst, or a drain has clogged up, and now a portion of your house is flooded. By common sense, you’ll be wanting to take steps to ensure you can get a fix as soon as possible, but the steps to fix the problem depend heavily on the type of water damage.

If it’s clean water, you’ll suffer the expected effects of your wooden surfaces and electrical appliances, but health demerits are kept to a minimum. More polluted types can have worse effects, with flood water from toilet plumbing or outside drains even making the house uninhabitable unless cleaned by a professional cleaning service.

Consult The Guide Below To Know What Are The Common Types Of Water Damage:

1. Clean Water: The Least Harmful Type of Flooding

Clean Water damage is the least concern for water damage restoration services. It refers to clean water that could come from various sources and doesn’t pose a threat to your health upon exposure. While it still needs an immediate solution, it’s usually safe for you to clean up floods from clean water if it hasn’t come into contact with an electrical outlet. Some of the familiar places you’d see clean water flooding are:

Rainwater flooding in heavy monsoon regions. Basements are also particularly vulnerable to rainwater flooding if any ground-level windows in them get damaged.
Melting snow piled up around the house or even on your roof could flood into your home. In most cases, this is the cleanest type of flooding, and all you have to do is clean it up.
You can also have clean water flooding from tanks, whether they supply your toilet or kitchen. You should turn off the water flow to the damaged tank immediately or call our expert plumbers to do so.

2. Dirty Water Damage: The Beginning Of Health Risks

Dirty water flooding is also sometimes called greywater flooding or sullage and is where serious health risks start to appear. Dirty water or muddy water is the polluted water through use, like bathtub water or water from kitchen sinks, and will assuredly cause health problems if ingested. Regardless of the source, you should keep children and pets away from the flooded area if they drink the dirty water. It’s advisable to call professionals to deal with severe muddy water flooding. You can see this type of water damage originating from sources like:

If electrical appliances that use water, like washing machines and dishwashers, malfunction, it can cause greywater damage. This is just soapy water that you can mop up without any worry.
The most common type of dirty water damage is from your plumbing. Even if you have PVC piping installed a few years ago, burst plumbing can flood your house within minutes and even damage other lengths of exposed pipes.
As with clean water damage, pooled dirty water can transform into the worst type of water damage, blackwater, within days. Blackwater can have immediate health disadvantages if you ingest or expose yourself to it.

3. Blackwater Damage: Water From Contaminated Sources

Out of all the different types of water damage in the ceiling, blackwater is often the worst type. It’s called category three flooding to reflect its seriousness. Usually, blackwater comes from toilet pipes that carry waste outside or burst sewage pipes. The most dangerous thing about blackwater is that it promotes bacteria, fungi, and other organic contaminants in a short time due to human waste. Being exposed to blackwater like sewage can have immediate health demerits, including bacterial infections from the pollutants in the water.

The worst part about blackwater damage is that things that absorb it, like carpets and drywall, often can’t be salvaged due to its incredibly unhealthy nature. Rather than take the chance of using a rug that absorbs blackwater, it would help if you bore the expense of getting a new carpet. Lastly, if you suspect blackwater damage, contact a professional plumber to assess the situation immediately.

EZ Plumbing Restoration USA: Reliable Plumbing Services

EZ Plumbing Restoration USA is a company that has been providing the best water damage restoration and plumbing services for years to thousands of homeowners. At EZ, we offer a skilled team of talented plumbers to deal with your situations. Regardless of how serious the problem with your plumbing might be, we guarantee a quick, painless fix to ensure you can enjoy your beautiful home without any delay.

We have a lot of experience dealing with different types of flooding, whether it’s clean water or greywater. We also have the tools and resources to deal with blackwater flooding. Our top-rated plumbers can fix or replace your damaged water heaters, piping, tanks, or sewage pipes in just a few hours. If you want to get our efficient services for your home, you can give us a call at our business number or even book an appointment through our website today!

What Are The Different Types Of Water Damage Caused By Roofing Leaks?