Water Damage Restoration in Pico-Union, CA

The apartment buildings here are largely pre-war, built with vertically stacked kitchens and bathrooms, and running cast iron waste plumbing that is now around a century old.

Cast iron corrodes from the inside, horizontal runs and stack bases first, and the failure presents as a slow seep inside a wall or floor assembly rather than a break. It travels between units for months before a musty smell or a soft spot gives it away, and by then there's established growth in a shared cavity.

One failure in a plumbing column affects the same corner of every unit below it. Drying that means treating the column as one job, opening the cavities that carried water rather than assuming they're dry because the surface looks fine, and containing per unit so residents can stay in place.

Occupancy is high and households here generally have the fewest relocation options of anywhere we work. Displacing people is a serious cost, not an inconvenience, and per-unit containment with schedules built around residents' actual working hours keeps most people in place.

Contents documentation matters disproportionately. Renters claims are underpaid more often than any other kind, and the reason is almost always evidence — a list that says "bedroom furniture" gets a generic allowance, while an inventory with individual photographs, descriptions and condition gets itemised.

So we photograph every significant item individually, including obvious total losses, before anything moves. A dumpster photo isn't evidence of what was in the dumpster, and for these households that difference is real money.