Water Damage Restoration in Fort Lauderdale, FL

Fort Lauderdale water damage either comes in from outside, with heavy rain and high tides, or starts inside, in older homes and towers that still run on original plumbing. Call South Florida Restoration Co about a canal-front house on the Las Olas Isles, a ranch house in Riverland or a condo on Galt Ocean Mile, and the water comes out and the walls get dried.

What April 12, 2023 showed about flooding away from the coast

The deepest water that day was inland: in Edgewood by the airport, and around SE 17th Street and SE 3rd Avenue, where the National Weather Service found a 2.8-foot water mark on a building. Streets north of downtown sat under 1 to 2 feet of water. Rain came faster than the streets and canals could drain it and got in at the lowest doorways first.

However clean it looked coming in, street water carries runoff, fuel and often sewage. Soaked drywall, insulation, carpet and pad come out, and the flood cut goes above the highest mark because drywall wicks water upward. Whatever stays gets cleaned before drying starts. Flood cleanup goes through that work step by step.

Tides, seawalls and the waterways

Homes on the canals and the Intracoastal can take on water with no rain at all. On the highest tides, water tops low seawalls into yards and garages and backs up through storm drains into the street. The city maintains 215 tidal valves to keep tide water out of the drains, but a valve can’t stop water coming over a seawall.

Salt from tide water stays in drywall and wood and keeps pulling moisture out of the humid air long after the water is gone, so tell us if it came in at high tide and the cleanup treats it as outside water from the start.

Houses from the 1950s to the 1970s

Outside the towers, much of the city is ranch houses and duplexes from the postwar boom. At that age the plumbing is often original: galvanized supply lines that rust from the inside and cast-iron drain lines under the slab that crack and scale, with the water heater tucked in a closet or the garage. A slab leak or a split drain line can wet the floor across several rooms before anything shows on the surface.

The other usual source is the hallway AC closet. When the air handler overflows its drain pan, water soaks the closet floor, the carpet at the door and the bottom of the walls on both sides. AC leak water damage covers what gets checked around the unit.

Towers, condos and units left empty for the season

In a tower with units stacked on shared risers, a leak doesn’t stay put. A supply line or shower pan upstairs shows up as a stain in the unit below, sometimes two floors down, and inside walls shared with the unit next door. With so many units empty part of the year, it can run for days before anyone notices.

When the owner upstairs is away, the building engineer or management usually has to shut off the source. Then each wet unit gets its own moisture readings and drying. The guide to water leaking from the condo unit above covers getting the water shut off and keeping a record for the building.

Fort Lauderdale mailing addresses outside the city

Several Fort Lauderdale ZIP codes reach past the city limits: 33305, 33306 and 33334 also take in parts of Oakland Park and Wilton Manors, and 33311 runs into Lauderhill. The same 24/7 line covers them. Don’t see your ZIP? Call anyway and we’ll check your address.

If water is inside now, tell us where it came from: the street, the canal, a pipe or the unit upstairs. That answer decides what gets cut out and what can be dried in place.