How a wet house gets from first call to dry, repaired rooms, and which page to read for your kind of water.
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Jenkintown Water Damage Restoration handles water damage restoration for Jenkintown and the communities around it: finding the source, removing standing water, drying walls and floors with monitored equipment, and rebuilding what had to come out. Phones are answered 24/7, a crew is dispatched as fast as one is available, and you approve the emergency-stage price before work begins.
Start with the water itself. If it is coming from a pipe inside the house, close the main valve; if it is coming up through a floor drain or in through a wall, the main valve will not help and your job is to stay out of it. Keep out of standing water near outlets, the furnace or the water heater, and cut power to that area only if the panel is dry and easy to reach.
A house in this part of Pennsylvania can get wet in more ways than most. It may be a cast-iron stack that has rusted through in a wall, a supply line that froze in a stone exterior wall, a sump pump that quit mid-storm, or the creek and the sewer both filling at once. The water can look the same on the floor and still call for very different handling, which is why the first thing a crew does is work out where it came from.
This page is the map. It explains the sequence every job follows, from the first moisture reading to the last coat of paint, and it points you to the page that covers your particular cause in depth. Plumbing repair is not part of the work: a licensed plumber fixes the pipe, and the crew handles everything the water touched.
Do not step into standing water if cords, outlets, the furnace or the water heater are in it, and do not run a household vacuum on wet floors. If the water came up from a drain, treat it as contaminated and keep children and pets out.
Three things move a restoration bill: how much area got wet, which category the water was, and how many days the materials need on the equipment. Public cost guides give a wide band for the typical job, and the rows below are a working estimate to show how the pieces add up.
| Job | Typical range | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Typical whole-job total, per HomeAdvisor's 2026 cost guide | $1,383–$6,369 | Cost guides report an average near $3,900; your job can fall outside the band |
| Philadelphia-area total, per Angi's Philadelphia page | $1,597–$5,456 | Reported figure for the city, a rough guide for nearby suburbs |
| Emergency inspection and moisture assessment | Free–$200 | Often credited if work goes ahead |
| Structural drying, one room, three to five days | $800–$2,500 | Equipment and monitoring visits; plaster and masonry can run longer |
| Flood cut, per linear foot of wall | $3–$8 | Cutting out wet drywall or plaster two to four feet up |
| After-hours emergency fee | $100–$300 | Evenings, weekends and holidays |
Treat the first two rows as what published cost guides report and the rest as a working estimate for Montgomery County in 2026, not a price list. The crew confirms the number on site and you approve the emergency stage before equipment is set; repairs after drying are priced on their own.
This is the simplest case and the one where the most material can often be saved, provided drying starts promptly. A split line in a plaster wall is still slow to dry, so even clean water can need several days of equipment.
Gray water carries contamination, so pad and porous materials are usually removed rather than dried in place. Hard surfaces are cleaned and treated before the drying equipment goes in.
This is grossly contaminated and is treated as a hazard from the first minute. Porous materials that it touched are normally removed, and the crew works in protective gear. The sewage cleanup and flood cleanup pages cover those two sources.
Call any hour and explain what is going on. You get a clear price before any work starts.
The call comes first, then a crew is dispatched as fast as one is available. On site, the crew finds the source, takes moisture readings, removes water and ruined materials, runs drying equipment with daily checks and, once readings are dry, quotes the repairs. Each stage is explained and approved before it starts.
The phone is answered at any hour, and the person who picks up asks about the source, how deep the water is and whether anyone is hurt or standing in it. That conversation is how a crew gets sent with the right pump and the right protective gear. It is not a promise about arrival time, because crews are dispatched as fast as one is available and a storm night is busy.
On site, the first hour or so is mostly looking and measuring. The crew walks the wet area and the rooms around it, then explains what it recommends and what the emergency stage will cost before anything is switched on. You can say no to any step, though skipping drying is the choice most likely to lead to mold.
Match the page to where the water came from. Water from a pipe is a burst-pipe or frozen-pipe job. Water arriving at the cellar from outside, from the pump, from a drain or through a stone wall has its own page. A storm, a creek or a sewer is a flood or sewage job.
Pipe failures sit on the burst pipe and frozen pipe pages. Water in a cellar splits three ways: basement flooding for water arriving in volume, the stone basement page for walls that weep, and the sump pump failure page for a pump that has quit.
If you cannot tell, call anyway. The first thing a technician does is trace the source, and many jobs turn out to have two causes, such as a pump that failed during a storm that also pushed water through a wall.
Plaster over wooden lath, hardwood floors over joists, and stone or brick walls hold water far longer than modern drywall. They release it slowly, so equipment may run for more days and the crew checks more often. Rushing the rebuild over a damp wall is how a leak becomes a mold job.
Old plaster soaks water up from the floor like a wick and then lets it out slowly, and the lath behind it stays damp longer than the surface suggests. Dense materials such as plaster, hardwood and masonry are the ones the IICRC S500 standard groups under specialty drying, where the drying plan is built around them. The structural drying page goes through that in detail.
The U.S. EPA advises drying water-damaged areas and items within 24 to 48 hours to keep mold from starting. That is the honest reason to call early, and it is also why the equipment stays until the numbers say a wall is dry.
The crew records moisture readings, takes photographs and keeps a list of the materials removed, and gives those to you. Whether a loss is covered is decided by your insurer under your policy. Standard homeowners policies typically exclude flood, and sewer backup usually needs an added endorsement.
Take your own photos before anything is moved, and call your insurer early. Ask your agent about flood, sewer backup and sump discharge coverage before you need it, because those are often separate. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department takes consumer questions on claims.
Nothing on this site promises a claim outcome. What the crew can do is keep clean records so your insurer has something concrete to look at.
The crew confirms the water is off or the source is controlled, looks for electrical hazards and notes whether the water came from a supply line, a drain, the ground or the sky. That answer decides how the rest of the job runs.
Clean, gray and sewage-contaminated water are handled differently, and clean water can turn worse as it sits and warms. The category is recorded early because it decides what can be dried in place and what has to be removed.
Moisture meters and a thermal camera trace how far the water travelled into plaster, framing, subfloors and neighboring rooms. Photos and readings made at this stage are the record you can hand to your insurance company.
Pumps and extractors take the standing water. Wet carpet pad, soaked insulation and drywall that has wicked water upward may be cut out, with your approval, so air can reach what is behind them.
Air movers and dehumidifiers run while the crew returns to re-read the same spots. The job is finished when the readings match a dry reference in your own house, not when the surface feels dry.
Plaster, drywall, trim and flooring repairs are quoted separately once the structure is dry. Waiting for dry readings first keeps a damp wall from being sealed behind new paint.
Jenkintown is a small borough in Montgomery County, about 10 miles north of Center City Philadelphia, and it sits between Abington and Cheltenham townships. Jenkintown Creek runs through the borough as part of the Tookany system, and WHYY has reported that its watershed is about 98 percent developed, so storm runoff reaches the creek quickly. Water damage here often starts with rain rather than with a pipe.
The housing in and around the borough runs from older stone twins to brick rowhouses and mid-century houses, many with full cellars. Old cast-iron drain stacks, early copper or galvanized supply lines and plaster ceilings are all realistic things to find behind a wall, which is why the first visit is mostly about tracing and measuring.
Pennsylvania does not license water mitigation as a trade, but it does require most home improvement contractors to register with the Attorney General's office and to put jobs over $500 in a written contract. You can look a contractor up on the Attorney General's site, and you can ask the company for its registration number and for its technicians' IICRC certifications before work starts.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
Pumping and extracting standing water from cellars, floors and carpet so drying can start before mold does.
Monitored drying of plaster-and-lath walls, hardwood over joists and stone or brick, with daily readings until dry.
Pumping, cleanup and drying when water arrives in a basement from the surface, a failed pump or a backed-up drain.
Removal, cleaning and drying after sewage or a sewer backup reaches a basement, handled as Category 3 contamination.
Cost guides report a typical water damage restoration job at $1,383 to $6,369 nationally (HomeAdvisor, average about $3,868) and $1,597 to $5,456 for Philadelphia (Angi, average about $3,527).
Pennsylvania does not issue a general contractor license.
Call as soon as you have made the area safe. Wet materials left sitting give mold a start, and the EPA advises drying within 24 to 48 hours. Someone answers the phone at any hour, and a crew goes out as fast as one can be freed up.
Only if it is safe and the item is light. Lift wet legs of a sofa onto foil or blocks if you can, and leave heavy or electrical items alone. Take photos first so the starting condition is recorded.
No. Repairing a pipe, a fixture or a water heater is a licensed plumber's work. The crew stops the water inside the house where it safely can, dries and cleans what the water touched, and tells you what the plumber needs to see.
Sometimes, depending on the cause and your policy. Sudden, accidental water such as a burst pipe is often covered, while flood and long-term leaks are typically not, and sewer backup usually needs an endorsement. Your insurer decides, so read your policy or ask your agent.
Extraction takes hours, drying usually takes several days, and repairs come after that. Plaster, masonry and hardwood can run longer than drywall. The daily readings, not a calendar, tell everyone when the structure is dry.
Yes, light-commercial work is part of the business, though larger commercial jobs are quoted only after a walkthrough. Storefront and office losses are scoped differently because downtime matters as much as the water.