Water Damage Restoration in Lower Burrell

We do, from across the river. The Tarentum Bridge carries Route 366 over the Allegheny from our side to New Kensington, and Lower Burrell wraps around New Kensington on the north and east. In fact, New Kensington and Arnold were once part of Lower Burrell Township. So when you call from the 15068 ZIP, you are calling the water crew next door, not a dispatcher in a far-off city.

Un-Flood-It has run out of Tarentum since December 2009. Brian Marra owns it, and he also owns the plumbing company 1-Tom-Plumber Pittsburgh. Our technicians are IICRC certified, and we carry PA Home Improvement Contractor License #PA080868. Lower Burrell is one stop on every town our Lower Burrell water crew covers. The same trucks handle flood cleanup next door in New Kensington, water damage calls across the Alle-Kiski Valley, and basement water up the river in Freeport.

Creeks are the short answer. Pucketa Creek runs along the city's south edge and empties into the Allegheny where Lower Burrell meets Plum. Little Pucketa Creek joins it right in Lower Burrell. Chartiers Run drains into the Allegheny here too. These streams look small on a dry day. In a hard rain they fill fast, and the low ground along them floods first. The big river rises more slowly, and NOAA tracks its level and flood stage at the Allegheny River gauge at Natrona Lock and Dam, right across the water from the city.

Kinloch knows this better than anyone. When the remnants of Hurricane Ivan dumped as much as 7 inches of rain on the valley on September 17, 2004, Pucketa Creek raged out of its banks. Firefighters floated a rescue raft up to a house on Wells Avenue. Backyards along Chicago Avenue turned into swamps, and one resident said the water in her basement was neck high. Sump pumps were no match for it. Dryers floated in basements. Michelle, Wills, Wells, Pacific and Atlantic were the hardest hit streets. It was the worst flooding in recent memory for the whole valley.

Ivan was not the last time. On a June night in 2014, a creek jumped its banks around 11 p.m. and sent a river of water down Millers Lane and into basements and yards. One longtime resident compared it to whitewater rafting. Since Ivan, the Westmoreland Conservation District has built a retention pond above Kinloch to slow runoff off the hillside. The district says plainly that it reduces flooding. It does not prevent it.

The sewers are the other half of the story. Lower Burrell owns its own sewer lines, and the Municipal Sanitary Authority of the City of New Kensington treats the flow. In 2024 the city announced new liners for nearly every sewer in Kinloch, because groundwater was leaking into the pipes and causing sanitary backups and overflows. Until that kind of work is finished everywhere, a heavy storm can still push sewage up through a basement floor drain.

The homes themselves add to it. Lower Burrell boomed after it became a city in 1959, and the housing shows it. About 26% of the homes were built in the 1950s and nearly 20% in the 1960s. Add the older stock, and about two of every three homes in the city went up before 1970. Those basements have aging floor drains, tired sump pumps, and block walls that seep when the ground is soaked.

Water losses cannot wait for a callback, so we run around the clock, weekends and holidays included. From Tarentum we cross the bridge and roll a truck with extraction and drying gear into any part of the city, from Braeburn down to Kinloch. We are close, and we get there fast.

Speed is physics, not a sales line. Water wicks up drywall by the hour and soaks into subfloor and framing. Pull it out fast and you save the material. Wait a day and you replace it. That is the point of calling the crew already in your valley.

We do not pack up when the floor feels dry. We pack up when the meters say it is dry. We map the moisture, including the water hiding in walls and under floors. We pull the standing water with high-powered pumps, set air movers and dehumidifiers, and sanitize when the loss calls for it. A final inspection confirms the structure is back to safe moisture levels.

Water, sewage, and mold are all we do. If creek water or a backed-up drain came up through the basement floor, treat it as dirty and stay out of it. That water calls for sewage backup cleanup for Lower Burrell basements, and we bring the right gear on the truck. Standing water left too long grows mold in a day or two, so we also handle mold remediation when a loss sat wet. We do not sell fire restoration, rebuilds, or plumbing repair, 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.