Water Damage Restoration in Somerville, MA

Somerville packs more people into four square miles than any other city in New England, and most of them live in triple-deckers and two-families built between 1890 and 1920. The city is a set of hills, Prospect, Spring, Winter, and Clarendon, with low ground between them. Union Square and the streets toward the old Miller's River, filled in a century ago, sit at the bottom, and that is where the water goes in a heavy rain.

The basements under these houses are fieldstone and brick with plaster walls above and a century of patched plumbing inside. Much of the city still runs on combined sewers, so a summer downpour can put sewer water up through a basement drain on a low street. The February 2023 freeze split pipes in cold outside walls all over the city, and the snow of 2015 sat on flat roofs and backed up into top-floor ceilings.

Somerville water damage, hill to square

A basement on a low street near Union Square that took water up the floor drain is a sewage cleanup job. A condo conversion where the third-floor unit's washer hose let go is ceiling water damage repair for the unit below and water extraction for the one above, and the condo documents decide who pays for which.

Most of Somerville's housing has been divided into condos or rented out for decades, so a single leak often involves three households and one basement nobody claims. Get the main valve shut in the cellar, knock on every door in the building, and photograph each unit before anything is moved. If the basement holds the electrical panels for all three units, keep everyone out of the water until the power is confirmed off. The crew that meters all three floors on the first visit saves the argument later about which ceiling was wet first.

Where to call in Somerville

Somerville buys its water through the MWRA, and the city's water and sewer division handles main breaks and sewer backups on the street side. Rebuild permits for plaster, plumbing, and wiring go through the city's Inspectional Services Department, which also handles the housing inspections that come up when a rental unit is damaged.

Call (857) 524-9927 now and tell us what you see. A local water damage provider serving Somerville takes it from there.