Fast, professional water damage restoration and mold remediation for Larkspur homes and businesses.
Larkspur sits at the bottom of the Ross Valley, which is where all that water is headed.
Corte Madera Creek runs through town and out to the bay, and downstream is the hardest place to be in a big rain. Everything Fairfax and San Anselmo shed comes past here, and if the tide is high at the same time, the creek has nowhere to empty into. That is the setup that put water through this end of the valley in 2005.
Out by Larkspur Landing and the flat ground near the water, the risk is more tidal than creek. Different water, same result on your ground floor.
Inside the house, the pattern we see most on the valley floor is water sitting under flooring or behind built-in cabinetry where nobody can see it. Kitchens and baths with cabinet runs against an exterior wall are the usual spot. We find those with meters and a camera rather than by pulling your cabinets off the wall to check. Corte Madera is next door on the same creek and sees much of the same.
The first hour decides most of the outcome, so here is what it actually looks like. We find the source and stop it, or get the water shut off if that has not already happened. Then we figure out what kind of water it is, because that changes what can be saved. Extraction starts immediately, since standing water is the single fastest thing to remove and every hour it sits is more material that has to come out later. While that runs, we map how far the water actually traveled with meters and a thermal camera, which is almost always further than the wet patch you can see. Only then do we set drying equipment, because putting fans on a room before knowing its boundaries just moves damp air into dry parts of the house. Structural drying is the part that takes days. The first hour is what determines how many.
Kitchen and bath cabinet runs against an exterior wall are where Larkspur water hides. The toe kick space underneath holds water, the cabinet boxes are usually particleboard that swells and does not come back, and none of it is visible from the room. What we do first is drill small access holes in the toe kick and dry the cavity from underneath with directed air, because a cabinet run that comes out is a kitchen you cannot use for weeks and a bill several times larger. That works more often than people expect. What does not survive is particleboard that has already swollen at the bottom edge, and solid wood face frames sometimes come through fine while the boxes behind them do not. We check under there before recommending anything, rather than pricing a full tear-out because it is the simpler job to quote. Upstream in San Anselmo the same cabinet runs take creek water instead of clean water, and that changes the answer.
