Even if you're “born careful” and have been taking steps to protect your home from water damage, the reality is that pipes burst. Dishwashers gush. And toilets and sinks overflow.

Then there is the influence of “natural events” like unrelenting rainstorms, which can unleash unnatural consequences on your home.

If you've been following Experts In Your Home's series on how to protect your home from water damage, room by room and indoors and outdoors, you should be way ahead of many Californians who are caught unawares by major water events that cause thousands of dollars in damage to their homes every year. But for these and other major water events that may strike your home, let Experts In Your Home lead the way to your safety and security with home maintenance tips that help protect you.

Protect Your Loved Ones

• Ensure the safety of your loved ones, first and foremost.
• Heed the warnings, if any, of local emergency management officials. Even if their warnings seem overly cautious, heed them anyway.
• Do not venture out of your home until you are confident that the threat of physical danger has passed. Always err on the side of caution.

Understand Why Quick Action Is Important

• Moving quickly will:
• Reduce the chance of structural damage to your home
• Lower the amount of mold and mildew that could develop from water damage
• Mitigate the amount of damage and loss to your personal belongings
• Increase the likelihood of enabling you to salvage household items

Safeguard Your Home

• Turn off the main water supply to your home.
• Disconnect all electronic devices and electrical equipment in your home. (In other words, if something is plugged into an electrical outlet, unplug it.)
• Turn off your gas supply.
• Call Experts In Your Home for assistance. Even if you're not certain you need our help, call us anyway. We'll feel better knowing that we're there to assist you when you're probably feeling bombarded and uncertain about your next move.
• Move any water-damaged items to a dry place.
• Remove standing water with a wet vac.
• Set up fans to begin to ventilate your home.
• Survey your home for any broken windows, cracks or leaks. Wait for Experts In Your Home to arrive to help you make any temporary repairs; we will make your home safe and structurally sound.

Involve Your Insurance Company

• Call your insurance company as soon as possible after a major water event. Don't worry about an “after hours call”; for insurance companies, there is no such thing.
• Start compiling a list of the damage to your home. It's important that you carefully categorize the extent of the damage, item by item, and take pictures. You can fill in the dollar value of each item later.

Experts In Your Home has arrived at plenty of water-damaged homes to find homeowners already pulling up damaged carpet, certain that it could not be salvaged. But keep in mind: carpets saturated with water only usually can be cleaned, dried and restored to their original condition. Then they can be relaid over new padding. It's carpets saturated with filthy water – including sewer water or sediment – that usually need to be replaced.

This home maintenance tip points to why it will help to have Experts In Your Home at your side during a major water event in your home. Contact us for home maintenance. In your time of crisis, there's no place our Experts would rather be.