Water Damage Restoration in Harmar Township

We do, from just 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. That is the whole list. No fire work, no rebuilds, no plumbing repair.

Harmar Township takes in Harmarville, Acmetonia, Harmar Heights, and Chapel Downs. It borders Cheswick and Springdale Township on the east and Fox Chapel and O'Hara on the west, with the Hulton Bridge carrying you over to Oakmont. The same trucks that work your street handle basement flooding next door in Cheswick and Springdale, water cleanup across the river in Oakmont and Verona, and flash flood drying in the Fox Chapel hills. Harmar is one stop on the map of towns our water crews cover.

Two reasons: the creek and the river. Deer Creek drains parts of Allegheny and Butler counties before it reaches Harmar. It picks up Little Deer Creek, Long Run, Rawlins Run, Blue Run, Cunningham Run, Cedar Run, Dawson Run, and its West Branch along the way. Heavy rain across all that ground funnels down to Harmarville hours later, and the creek has only one place to go: the river at your doorstep.

The river itself is the second problem. NOAA keeps a gauge on the Allegheny River at Sharpsburg Lock and Dam, the next dam down from Harmar. Flood stage there is 21 feet. The river hit 22.1 feet on September 18, 2004, when the leftovers of Hurricane Ivan dumped 5.95 inches of rain on Pittsburgh in two days. It reached 22.9 feet in January 1996 and 26.9 feet in June 1972. The worst of all came in March 1936, when the Allegheny crested at 46 feet in Pittsburgh, 21 feet above flood stage.

Winter has its own trick. On January 13, 2018, an ice jam in Harmar Township dammed the river and pushed the creeks up. Across the water in East Deer, basements flooded within an hour and at least 12 houses were evacuated. Flash floods hit from the other direction. On July 11, 2019, more than two inches of rain fell fast, PennDOT closed southbound Route 28 between the Harmar exit and the RIDC Drive exit for flooding, and roads along Little Deer Creek upstream in Indiana and West Deer townships closed too. All of that water was headed to Harmar.

Then there are the houses. Harmarville was founded in 1875 and settled by farmers and immigrant coal miners who worked the Harmar Mine. The company houses from the mine still stand at the lower end of Guy's Run Road. Old foundations, old drains, and small sump pumps are the first things to give up when the ground is saturated.

The Allegheny Valley Joint Sewer Authority plant sits on Freeport Road, right in the township, and sends its treated water to the river. The state has that plant under a consent order to expand its treatment and pumping capacity and to eliminate its sanitary sewer overflow bypasses. In plain words, the system fills past capacity in wet weather. When the pipes under the street are full, the lowest drain in the neighborhood becomes the overflow, and that is often a basement floor drain.

Anything that comes up through a drain is contaminated water. Stay out of it. Our crew brings the gear for sewage backup cleanup in Harmar basements: extraction, removal of what cannot be saved, disinfection, and then drying. If a loss sat wet for a couple of days before anyone found it, mold has already started, and we handle that remediation on the same job.

We run around the clock, weekends and holidays included. From Tarentum the truck heads down the river on Route 28, the same road that feeds the Allegheny Valley interchange of the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Harmar. Chapel Downs, Harmar Heights, Acmetonia, the streets off Freeport Road in Harmarville, and the homes along Route 910 are all on our regular route. If your mail says Cheswick or Pittsburgh, you are still Harmar to us.

Speed matters because water keeps moving. It 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 calling a dispatcher 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. A floor can feel fine to your hand while the subfloor still reads soaked, and that trapped water is what warps hardwood a month later.

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.