Worksheets for the week after a water loss
Use these during and after a loss. There is a photo and inventory checklist for your insurer, a daily drying log, a glossary of restoration terms, questions to ask before you sign, a way to compare two estimates and a Douglas County calendar for heading off the next leak.
- Photograph it before it moves: a water loss inventory checklist Use this the day you find the water and again as the work goes on. Clear photos and a clean inventory cut the back-and-forth with an adjuster more than anything else in your control.
- Before you sign: the forms a restoration crew hands you A restoration technician will often ask for a signature before starting. Some of those forms are routine. Others hand over control of your claim or your insurance payment. Use this to tell them apart while you're standing in a wet hallway.
- Glossary: what your restoration estimate is saying Restoration estimates and drying reports run on trade shorthand. Keep this open beside yours so you can question a specific line item instead of the whole bill.
- Parker's water-risk calendar, month by month Water damage in Parker follows the seasons: frozen lines in winter, sump and window-well trouble in spring, hail and cloudbursts in summer, irrigation shutdown in fall. A small check in the right month heads off most of it.
- What makes one water damage job cost more than another Nobody honest can price a water damage job without seeing it. You can learn ahead of time which factors move the total, so the estimate reads clearly and you can spot where your own choices change it.
- Towels and fans, or a restoration crew? Plenty of household leaks need nothing more than towels, fans and a few days. Others need extraction equipment within hours, and you can usually tell which kind you have within minutes of looking. Work down the list below.
- Five minutes a day: keep your own drying log The restorer keeps the official readings. Your own short log catches a stopped dehumidifier the same day, lets you check the equipment lines on the invoice, and gives you a record if a smell turns up months later.
- Plumber, restorer, roofer or irrigation tech: who to call first Most water losses need two kinds of help: someone to fix the source and someone to handle the damage it caused. Call the right trades in the right order and you save days.
- Two estimates, one water loss: how to compare them line by line Two estimates for the same water loss can land far apart, and the cheaper one often leaves something out. Line them up room by room, with the same scope and the same assumptions, before you look at the totals.
- Find every shutoff valve before the night you need one The minutes between finding a leak and stopping it decide how big the job gets. Spend half an hour on a calm afternoon with this worksheet, and you, or anyone house-sitting, will know exactly what to turn.