Water Damage, Mold and Restoration Companies in the Philadelphia Area

What Makes Philadelphia Different

Philadelphia is a row home city. Rows share party walls, gutters and flat roofs, so a leak next door can become your leak, and a roof problem on one house often shows up in the one beside it. Flat roofs need their seams and drains checked every year, because standing water on a flat roof will find a way in.

Much of the older city drains into a combined sewer that carries storm water and sewage together. A heavy summer storm or the remnants of a tropical system can push that water back up through basement drains. Treat any basement backup as sewage. Freeze and thaw in winter cracks old stone and brick foundations, which lets groundwater seep in each spring.

Most homes here were built long before 1978, so lead paint is likely in older rooms, and old boiler and pipe insulation may contain asbestos. Test before you sand, scrape or demolish. Old cast iron drains and galvanized supply pipes are also near the end of their life in many houses.