These are the questions Cranston and Providence homeowners ask most often when they call. Every answer starts with the answer.
Shut off the water at the main valve in the basement if it is safe to reach. Keep power off to any circuit with wet outlets. Carry what you can up the stairs and take photos of everything before anything is discarded. Then leave the wet materials alone.
Both, in that order. The water on the floor and the wet paneling, carpet, and framing are a basement flooding cleanup job. Stopping the next flood, whether that means a new sump, a check valve, or grading outside a stone foundation, is a separate repair the provider can point you toward.
Usually not. Plaster, subfloor, sill plates, and framing hold moisture long after the surface feels dry. A provider takes meter readings and runs air movers and dehumidifiers until the materials hit their target. Structural drying is the part that keeps a wet wall from becoming a mold problem.
Shut the main valve and leave it shut until a plumber has found every split, because a second section can let go as the house warms. Then the frozen pipe cleanup crew pumps out what ran and dries the wall, floor, and basement below it. Rhode Island porches and exterior walls plumbed before insulation was common are where this happens most.
Treat it as sewage until someone tells you otherwise. In the older sewered parts of Cranston and Providence, heavy rain can push the combined system back up through basement drains. Keep children and pets out, do not wade in, and call for sewage cleanup rather than a mop and a fan.
Nobody on this site can tell you what your policy will pay. Many policies cover sudden losses such as a burst pipe, while groundwater seepage and river flooding are usually excluded without a separate flood policy, and sewer backup is often a rider. Ask the crew to document photos, readings, and an itemized scope for your adjuster.
Sometimes. Cupped oak or pine that is caught early can often be dried with floor mats before it buckles. Floors that sat wet for weeks or that sat under sewage usually cannot. The provider meters the floor before anyone assumes it has to come out.
The lease or the condo documents decide, and the answer differs between a rental and a condo conversion. Document the damage, notify the owner or association in writing, and let the ceiling water damage repair crew record where the water came from and what it reached.
Yes. A septic backup is contaminated water, like a sewer backup, and the tank or the leach field has to be dealt with before the house will stay dry. The cleanup crew handles the inside; a septic contractor handles the system.
Drying and cleanup do not need a permit. Replacing drywall, plumbing, or electrical usually does. In Cranston that is the Building Inspection department, and each city and town in Providence County has its own desk. The provider handles permits when the rebuild requires them.
This site does not quote prices, and a provider cannot either until they have taken readings in the house. The scope depends on the source, how long the water sat, and what it reached. Ask for a written scope before work begins.
Rhode Island requires residential contractors to register with the state Contractors' Registration and Licensing Board, and registrations can be looked up on the board's website. Providers represent their own licensing and insurance; ask for a certificate of insurance as well.
Cranston and its neighborhoods, Providence and its neighborhoods, East Providence, Riverside, Rumford, Centredale, North Providence, Smithfield, Johnston, and Warwick. See the full list of nearby communities.
Call (401) 443-9638 now and tell us what you see: where the water started, which rooms are wet, and whether it is still coming in.