Water Damage Restoration in Export

We do, and we have been doing it since December 2009. Owner Brian Marra also owns 1-Tom-Plumber Pittsburgh, so a burst line gets a plumber referral while we pull the water. Every technician on the truck is IICRC certified, and we carry PA Home Improvement Contractor License #PA080868. We are water, sewage, and mold only. No fire work, no rebuilds.

Export is the 15632 ZIP, less than half a square mile, incorporated on November 11, 1911. The post office has carried the Export name since 1892, and the name says what the town did: mine coal and ship it out. The remains of the Westmoreland Coal Company's South mine still sit behind the District Court building, and a 2018 dig uncovered three of its entrances. Houses that old come with old foundations and old drains. The same trucks that run water damage restoration across Murrysville and water damage restoration up the creek in Delmont cover Export, and the borough is one stop on every Westmoreland County town our crews reach.

Turtle Creek starts in Delmont and runs 21.1 miles west to the Monongahela River. Export is the first town it passes through. Then come Murrysville, Monroeville, Trafford, and the river towns below. Export grew up right at the headwaters as a mining camp, so the oldest part of town sits in the lowest part of the valley. We see the same creek at work when we handle water damage cleanup downstream in Monroeville.

That creek has a record. In June 2009, a flash flood put nearly $2 million in damage on Export alone. The borough answered with a $9.8 million flood control project. Construction began in 2010 and finished in the fall of 2012. Today the creek runs through a concrete flood protection culvert under town, with a levee at the upstream end.

The project works, and it also shows the limit. On Friday, June 6, 2025, a thunderstorm parked itself over the ground between Turtle Creek and Export and dropped nearly 4 inches of rain in a few hours. Cars sat submerged on Old William Penn Highway in Export, and first responders evacuated 95 people across the area. The flood project did its job and kept the creek inside its culvert. But as Council President Barry Delissio put it, water flowing down the hill from above had no place to go. That is the Export problem in one sentence. The creek is tamed. The hillsides are not.

On September 17 and 18, 2004, the remnants of Hurricane Ivan dropped 5.95 inches of rain on Pittsburgh, the most ever recorded here from a tropical system, and pushed Turtle Creek to 9,760 cubic feet per second at Wilmerding. Ivan's rains damaged at least 21,000 buildings across Pennsylvania. KDKA's look back at Hurricane Ivan counts six deaths in the state and $85 million in damage.

Sewage follows the same weather. Export's wastewater flows to the Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority plant on Meadowbrook Road in Murrysville. That authority serves Murrysville, Export, Delmont, and parts of four more towns through about 332.9 miles of pipe. Four flow regulators sit in Export, and the borough itself maintains about 5 miles of collection sewer. When a storm like June 2025 fills those lines, water looks for the lowest open drain. In an old house, that is the basement floor.

Winter brings its own version. The storm on January 24 and 25, 2026 came with forecasts of 10 to 14 inches of snow and warnings to winterize pipes, and our own reviews describe homes with burst pipes from it.

We roll any hour, weekends and holidays included. From Tarentum we head southeast through Murrysville and come in on Old William Penn Highway, the road through the center of the borough. We ask two questions on the phone: where is the water coming from, and where is it going. If the answer is a floor drain, we load sewage gear before we leave.

Speed is physics, not a sales line. Water wicks up drywall by the hour and soaks into subfloor and framing. In a house from the coal days, that means plaster and old hardwood. Pull the water fast and most of it stays. Wait a day and it goes out in a dumpster.

We do not pack up when the floor feels dry. We pack up when the meters say it is dry. Our crew maps the moisture, including the water hiding in walls and under floors, then pulls the standing water with high-powered extraction. Air movers and dehumidifiers go in next, and we check the readings every day until the numbers say dry. A floor can feel dry to your hand while the subfloor still reads soaked, and that trapped water is what buckles hardwood weeks later.

If creek water or a backed-up drain came up through the basement, treat it as dirty and stay out of it. That water calls for sewage backup cleanup for Export homes, and we show up with the right gear on the truck. Standing water left too long grows mold in a day or two, so we handle mold remediation when a loss sat wet. Water, sewage, and mold are all we do, so our drying advice never pads a construction bid.

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