Water damage restoration in Naples and Fort Myers.
Storm surge pushing saltwater through canal and coastal homes, properties closed up for the off season while a leak runs, and humidity high enough that nothing dries on its own. Tell us the ZIP code and the request goes to a Southwest Florida crew.
- Collier, Lee and Hendry counties, one request
- Free to use. Restoration companies pay us, property owners never do
- One local crew, not a panel of firms racing to your phone
Southwest Florida takes a kind of water damage that most of the country never sees. Storm surge is not rain, it is seawater, and what it does to a building is different from anything a burst pipe can do.
Add a very large seasonal population, canal and waterfront housing on low ground, and humidity that sits high year round, and the result is a market where the same storm produces completely different jobs a mile apart.
Why Naples and Fort Myers properties take water damage
Six failures account for most of what crews attend across this market.
Storm surge
Seawater pushed inland by a storm. It is contaminated, it is corrosive, and salt left in a wall assembly keeps drawing moisture out of the air long after the building looks dry.
A leak in a closed up home
A property left for the summer with the air conditioning set high, or off, turns a small supply failure into months of water in a humid sealed building.
Air handler and condensate lines
A clogged condensate line backs up into the drain pan and through the ceiling. In a two storey home that is two floors before anybody notices.
High water table and tidal flooding
Ground water sits close to the surface, so there are no basements and rising water arrives through the ground rather than through a door.
Water from another unit
In a condo the failure is upstairs and the damage is yours, with the association master policy and your own policy both involved.
Humidity doing the rest
Whatever the original cause, the surrounding air is carrying so much moisture that nothing dries without equipment.
Saltwater is not the same as water
A crew that treats surge like a burst pipe will leave you with a building that never stops being damp. Salt is hygroscopic, meaning it pulls moisture out of the air, so a wall that absorbed seawater keeps drawing humidity back in for as long as the salt is in it.
That changes the work. Affected porous material comes out rather than being dried, surfaces have to be rinsed and flushed rather than simply wiped, and metal fixings and fasteners in the assembly begin corroding immediately.
It also changes the claim, because surge is flooding. It falls under a flood policy rather than the homeowners policy, and the two have different deductibles, different adjusters and different rules.
Ask whether they have handled surge before
Flushing salt out of an assembly and knowing what has to be removed is specific experience. It is a fair question and any competent local crew will answer it directly.
Photograph the water line first
How high the water reached is what separates a flood claim from a wind claim, and it is the first thing lost when furniture moves.
What to do first
Safety, then documentation, then drying.
Shut the water off
The main is usually near the street side of the property. Stopping the supply also stops the meter, which is how a suspected hidden leak gets confirmed.
Work out whether it was salt or fresh
Seawater and rainwater produce completely different scopes. If the water came in at ground level during a storm, say so on the first call.
Do not enter standing water
Surge water is contaminated and it carries whatever it crossed on the way in. Keep children and pets out and assume power is a hazard.
Photograph the water line first
How high it reached is what separates a flood claim from a wind claim, and it is the first thing lost when furniture moves.
Notify the right insurer
Surge falls under a flood policy, wind damage under windstorm cover. If you hold both, notify both and let them establish which responds.
Get porous material out
Anything that absorbed seawater comes out rather than being dried. Photograph it, then move it away from what is still dry.
Say it was saltwater on the first call
It changes the whole scope, from flushing to what has to be removed, and a crew needs to know before they load the van.
How Florida insurance treats it
The question that decides most claims is whether the water arrived suddenly or built up over time.
Usually covered
- A supply line, water heater or appliance failing suddenly
- A sudden air handler or condensate overflow
- Wind driven rain entering through an opening a storm created
- Water escaping from another unit, under most resident policies
Usually excluded
- Storm surge and flooding, which fall under a flood policy
- A condensate line that has been dripping for months
- Loss in a property left unoccupied beyond the period the policy allows
- Mold beyond whatever sublimit the policy carries
Three policies, and they do not overlap
In this market a property can need three separate things: a homeowners policy for sudden internal failures, windstorm cover with its own percentage deductible for named storms, and a flood policy for surge. They do not substitute for one another.
The most common and most expensive misunderstanding here is assuming windstorm cover pays for surge. It does not. Nothing here is a coverage determination on your policy.
Areas we cover
One request covers the whole market, which spans 57 ZIP codes and roughly 1.1 million residents across Collier, Lee and Hendry.
Put the property ZIP on the form. If nobody covers it, we say so rather than passing your details on.
Naples and Fort Myers questions
Is storm surge covered by my homeowners or windstorm policy?
Why can saltwater damage not just be dried out?
I close my house for the summer. What should I do?
What is a hurricane deductible?
Which areas does this cover?
Often needed after a water loss here
Mold removal
Where water sat before anyone found it, remediation usually follows the dry out. Mold removal and remediation
Sewage and biohazard
Backups and contaminated water run under containment rules. Biohazard and trauma cleanup