Water Damage Restoration in McCandless

We do. 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. Water, sewage, and mold are the whole business. We do not sell fire restoration, rebuilds, or plumbing repair.

McCandless was settled in 1796, became Taylor Township in 1851, and took its current name in 1857. The population more than doubled between 1930 and 1950, doubled again by 1960, and doubled again after that. McKnight Road was built in the mid-1950s to carry all those new families home. ZIP codes here include 15237 and 15090. McCandless is one stop on the North Hills towns our water crews reach, and the same trucks handle water damage calls next door in Allison Park, water damage cleanup over in Gibsonia, and basement water removal in Cranberry Township.

Pine Creek drains 67 square miles of the North Hills and empties into the Allegheny River at Etna. About 79 percent of McCandless sits inside that watershed, and the Pine Creek Watershed Coalition calls its floodplains poorly drained. The town's own description says it plainly: a floodplain lies along Pine Creek, which cuts a deep valley through the central part of the township. Pine Creek Road, Rinaman Road, Old Perry Highway, and the McKnight Road crossing near Ingomar Road all sit in that valley.

On July 11, 2019, a morning of heavy rain put six feet of water in the front yard of a home on Pine Creek Road, and it flowed into the garage. The owner had been told the property flooded once in twenty years. He flooded five times in his first year. On August 31, 2021, a swollen creek near Pine Creek and Rinaman Road turned a parking lot into a river, and cars were turned around at Pine Creek and McKnight roads. The same homeowner told WTAE it was the fifteenth time in three years Pine Creek had flooded his home.

It has not stopped. On June 17, 2025, flash flooding covered Rinaman and Pine Creek Roads in dirty water, the town closed Reichold Road, Blazier Drive, and Old Perry Highway, and the Peebles Volunteer Fire Department brought a boat into North Park to rescue campers from a cabin. On September 9, 2026, under a Flash Flood Warning, crews pulled two partly submerged vehicles off Old Perry Highway near Pine Creek Road just before 11 p.m. NOAA tracks the downstream end of this system at its Little Pine Creek near Etna gauge.

Sewage rides the same storms. The McCandless Township Sanitary Authority runs four treatment plants, 17 pumping stations, and more than 240 miles of gravity sewer across four drainage basins: Pine Creek, Lowries Run, Girty's Run, and Little Pine Creek. The Lowries Run and Girty's Run basins flow into ALCOSAN's system, and ALCOSAN explains that combined sewers overflow during significant rain because the pipes fill beyond their capacity to carry both sewage and storm water. The overflow can come up through the lowest drain in the lowest house.

The Census puts the median McCandless home at 1973, and 2,659 of the town's 12,847 homes went up in the 1970s alone, with another 2,389 from the 1960s and 1,869 from the 1950s. Those houses have old drain tile, original sump pumps, and finished basements their builders never planned for. The January 24 and 25, 2026 storm 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 run around the clock, weekends and holidays included. From Tarentum we head west across the North Hills and roll a truck with extraction and drying gear into McCandless. McKnight Road, Pine Creek Road, McCandless Crossing: all of it is a short run.

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. Mold can start in a day or two on wet drywall, so the short drive matters.

We do not pack up when the floor feels dry. We pack up when the meters say it is dry. We map the moisture first, including the water hiding behind finished basement walls and under floating floors. Then we extract 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. A carpet can feel dry while the pad under it still reads wet, and that trapped water breeds the musty smell three weeks later.

If Pine Creek came through a window well, or a backed-up drain pushed up through the basement floor, treat it as dirty and stay out of it. That water calls for sewage backup cleanup for McCandless basements, and we show up with the right gear on the truck. If a loss sat wet before you found it, we handle the mold remediation too. Mold testing goes to a third-party hygienist.

We photograph and log the loss as we work, then bill your insurance company directly, which is the banner on the front of our website. Your policy and the cause of the loss decide what is covered. You still choose who does the work. It is your claim.