Water Damage Restoration in Aspinwall

We do, from up the river. Un-Flood-It has run out of Tarentum since December 2009, owned by Brian Marra, who also owns the plumbing company 1-Tom-Plumber Pittsburgh. Our technicians are IICRC certified, and we carry PA Home Improvement Contractor License #PA080868. We pull water, dry structures, clean up sewage, and remediate mold. We do not sell fire restoration, rebuilds, or plumbing repair.

Aspinwall sits about seven miles up the Allegheny from Pittsburgh, with the Highland Park Bridge, open since 1939, carrying you across the river. The same trucks that work Brilliant Avenue handle river flooding downstream in Pittsburgh, storm runoff cleanup up the hill in Fox Chapel, and water damage drying over in Shaler Township. Aspinwall is one stop on our full list of river towns and suburbs.

Start with the houses. The Aspinwall Land Company bought 155 acres from Annie Aspinwall in 1890. The borough incorporated on December 28, 1892. It was built out in three phases from 1893 to 1905, starting nearest the river. The rowhomes and Victorians that line the streets today are those same late-1800s houses. Old stone foundations, original drain lines, and small sump pumps are the first things to fail when the ground is soaked.

Then the hills. Aspinwall is the low spot at the bottom of O'Hara's slopes. Every big storm sends water down Delafield Road toward Freeport Road and the river. On July 11, 2019, police closed Freeport Road between Brilliant Avenue and Delafield Avenue. A car sat stuck in the water. The entrance to UPMC St. Margaret shut for hours. A resident of 30 years described a muddy river running down Delafield. Route 28 flooded down toward the city the same day.

In July 2018 the borough flooded three times in one week. One Delafield Road home's sump pump was overwhelmed. Water forced the garage door open and rose over the seats of two cars. The basement filled with mud. The boards the family had put in after Hurricane Ivan were not enough.

It keeps happening. On August 5, 2022, a Friday afternoon storm turned Freeport Road into a lake, stalled cars near the waterworks, and put businesses on the street underwater. One owner said her shop floods about once a year because it sits on a low corner.

The river is the slow threat. NOAA's gauge on the Allegheny River at Sharpsburg Lock and Dam, next door to Aspinwall, sets flood stage at 21 feet. The river hit 22.1 feet on September 18, 2004 from the remnants of Ivan, 22.9 feet in January 1996, and 26.9 feet in June 1972. In March 1936 it crested at 46 feet in Pittsburgh, 21 feet above flood stage.

Aspinwall runs on combined sewers. Stormwater and raw sewage share one pipe. In a hard rain that pipe fills past capacity. ALCOSAN, which bills Aspinwall homeowners directly, has been under a federal consent decree since 2008. The goal is to cut about 7 billion gallons a year of sewage overflow out of the region's rivers by 2036. The borough has been splitting its sewers street by street with ALCOSAN grants: Eastern Avenue in 2017, Center Avenue in 2017, and Western Avenue in 2020. Until every block is done, a full pipe looks for the lowest outlet. That is often a basement floor drain.

Anything that comes up through a drain is contaminated. Stay out of it. Our crew handles basement sewage backup cleanup in Aspinwall: extraction, removal of what cannot be saved, disinfection, then drying. If the loss sat wet for a day or two before anyone found it, mold has already started, and we remediate it on the same job.

We run around the clock, weekends and holidays included. From Tarentum the truck heads down Route 28 to the Aspinwall exits and onto Freeport Road. Brilliant Avenue, Commercial Avenue, Center Avenue, Delafield, and the streets up toward the Delafield Plan are all on our regular route. Water wicks up drywall by the hour and soaks into subfloor and framing. Pull it out in the first hours and the material is saved. Wait a day and it gets replaced. That is why calling the crew already in your valley beats a call center two counties away.

We do not pack up when the floor feels dry. We pack up when the meters say so. We map the moisture, including what is hiding in walls and under floors. We extract the standing water, set air movers and dehumidifiers, sanitize where the loss calls for it, and check readings every day. A final inspection confirms the structure is back to safe moisture levels. In a rowhome from the 1890s, that matters, because a floor can feel fine to your hand while the joists under it still read soaked.

The paperwork runs alongside the pumps. We photograph and log the loss as we work and bill your insurance company directly. Your policy and the cause of the loss decide what is covered. You choose who does the work. It is your claim.