As a plumber, you know leaky and broken pipes are the single greatest cause of water damage in the home. Even a minor pipe leak in a home’s extensive plumbing system can do extensive immediate and long-term damage.
If you get a call from a Central Florida homeowner about a broken or leaking pipe, your first concern is naturally fixing the problem and stopping the leak. If the leak has caused water damage in the customer’s home, though, they may require the services of a professional water damage restoration and remediation company. Referring your customers to a qualified water damage restoration contractor adds value to the services you provide and helps the homeowner avoid even more damage from a pipe leak.
Plumbers and Water Restoration Services Working Together
First-hand experience tells us water is one of the most destructive forces to hit a home. In any given year, about 3 million homeowners submit a claim for water damage. Across the country, water damage-related costs total more than $13 billion, with the average insurance claim coming in at over $10,000. In Florida, the restrictions on water damage claims have gotten more extensive. And if mold is present or the leak can be proven to have existed without a fix for 14 days or more, many policies no longer cover the damage.
Encouraging your customers to take a proactive approach by contacting a water damage remediation company can be one of the most helpful services you provide. Plumbers and home restoration companies working together to alleviate water damage is a win-win situation. As a plumber, it helps you increase your customer base and revenues while growing your business.
What Your Plumbing Customers Need to Know About Water Damage
Many homeowners are unaware of how much damage to their home a single pipe leak can do. And that, even though a pipe leak has been fixed, it doesn’t mean often unseen harm hasn’t been done.
When recommending a water damage restoration company to your customers, it helps to educate them on just what the services are and how valuable they can be.
Reasons Pipes Leak
Most pipes leak due to age and normal wear and tear. The damage they do behind the scenes can often go undetected until visible signs like water stains, rotting wood, and warped flooring appear. When a leak happens behind a wall or under a home’s foundation, homeowners need to know it can wreak a whole lot of havoc.
The Damage a Pipe Leak Can Do
Pipe leaks don’t only waste water; they also damage a home’s structure and encourage mold growth. Unfortunately, because much of the pipework in a home is hidden, your customer might not always know a leak has formed from things like:
- Broken seals: When appliances are installed, seals are placed around every water connector and point where water flows into the appliance. They’re also installed on things like dishwasher doors. Over time, these seals can wear out or deteriorate. The homeowner might notice things like puddles near the appliance or condensation on the appliance’s exterior.
- Clogged lines: In most cases, clogged drain lines are simply an inconvenience. Other times, they can lead to overflowing, leaking, or broken pipes.
- Corrosion: Since corrosion tends to happen from the inside out, many homeowners don’t notice any damage until a pipe leak or worse happens.
- Damaged pipe joints: Plumbers know a plumbing system’s weakest points are often where pipes connect with one another, but homeowners don’t think to check for this problem, as the pipes are out of sight. It’s important to ask if they noticed their pipes were noisy or making a ticking or banging noise before the pipe leak occurred.
- Tree root intrusion: When tree roots intrude on exterior pipelines, they can cause a leak, resulting in water seeping into the customer’s yard or under their home’s foundation.
- Rapid temperature changes: Luckily, Central Florida enjoys a moderate climate, though it can have occasional cold spells in the winter. Ask the customer if they’ve noticed a higher water bill, change in water flow, or a musty drain smell. They could have a hidden leak somewhere in their plumbing network, which is causing unseen damage.
When Two Service Providers are Better Than One
Both plumbers and water damage restoration companies specialize in finding and fixing water damage issues, but their services are quite different. They typically complement one another, though they rarely cross paths. What mainly sets the two services apart is the extent of water damage.
- Typical plumbing issues include things like a leaking toilet seal, broken water heater, clogged pipes, drain line problems, septic tank problems, and water main issues. Most of these problems can be fixed within a few hours.
- Water restoration covers much more extensive problems like mold-causing issues, flooded rooms, and damaged drywall and flooring. Remediation and restoration work often takes days or weeks (and sometimes months) to resolve the problem.
Plumbers and water restoration companies working together offer homeowners the best of both worlds: someone to fix their immediate plumbing problem and someone else to handle water damage and prevent future harm.
When talking to a customer about bringing in a professional water damage restoration company, it helps to clarify what plumbers do during a water emergency and what services the restoration company performs.
- Plumbers generally handle water leaks caused by broken pipe fittings, burst pipes, and toilet leaks. They quickly and expertly fix things like broken faucets and showerheads, damaged gas, water, and sewer lines, clogged and overflowing toilets, and leaking and cracked pipes. Water sprinkler malfunctions, water heater leaks, and defective gaskets and fittings are all handled by a professional plumber.
- Water restoration companies specialize in providing emergency services during a water-related crisis. These services often include cleaning, containment of the source of water damage, deodorization, decontamination, including sewage and mold remediation, drying, and protecting parts of the home and its contents that weren’t affected by the initial water disaster but are in harm’s way. Once the situation is stable, the water restoration contractor inspects the customer’s home and its contents for damage. At that point, there may be more detailed cleaning required, and repairs are usually made to restore the house and its contents to pre-loss condition.
Of course, it would be nice if water damage was solved simply by fixing a pipe leak or other plumbing problem. In many cases, though, the leaked water causes extensive structural issues that might fall outside a plumber’s capacity.
If you own or operate a plumbing business, partnering with a water restoration company like Central Florida Restoration Solutions can help boost your referral rates as you build business relationships with other local businesses.
How You Can Help Customers Prepare for Water Damage Restoration Services
After you refer your customer to a home restoration professional, you can help them get ready for what lies ahead.
- Encourage the homeowner to thoroughly inspect their property. Once the pipe leak’s been fixed, it’s essential to document the home’s damage. Photos should be taken, and the homeowner should call their insurance agent or carrier. The homeowner might be relieved to hear that a reputable water damage restoration company like CFRS can also help them deal with the insurance company.
- It can help speed the process if homeowners remove all furniture, carpeting, and other affected furnishing to the outdoors to be cleaned, dried, or discarded.
- To prevent the spread of mold, the homeowner should avoid disturbing any visible mold indoors.
- Contingency living arrangements should be made if the damage is so extensive it makes the home temporarily uninhabitable.
Many homeowners like to dive right in and start the remediation process themselves. The steps they take are often helpful, but it’s important to understand that qualified, professional water damage remediation and restoration companies have the equipment, skills, and expertise needed to adequately clean, repair, and restore quickly and efficiently.
Partnering With Central Florida’s Most Trusted Water Damage Restoration Company
Most homeowners understand that a plumber’s work doesn’t typically extend to water restoration services. But in stressful times, they may feel abandoned when you complete the job and leave while everything in the house is still flooded or wet. They may ask, “what do I do now?”
When you partner with CFRS, you’re able to offer your customers an immediate solution by referring them to a water damage specialist. That builds trust and loyalty with grateful homeowners who feel motivated to refer your services to their neighbors, family, and friends.
Sometimes, homeowners call in a water restoration company like CFRS first, especially when the initial water damage is extensive. If our techs don’t know where the pipe leak or water damage is originating from, they can refer your services to the homeowner.
The bottom line? Plumbing and restoration companies that refer one another and work together can help homeowners solve their plumbing problems and water damage issues more quickly and effectively.
The Benefits of Referring CFRS to Your Customers for Water Damage
Most plumbing companies want to grow their business, offer a secure working environment for their employees, and improve customer service. To get there, they need to have systems and strategies in place that enhance efficiency, bring in more customers, and boost referrals. When you partner with CFRS, each company serves as an extension of the other’s service team. And because customers are more likely to take referrals from plumbers and restoration companies they already trust, both businesses profit from the referrals.
Plus, when plumbers and restoration pros work together, everyone, including the homeowner, benefits. Why fix a pipe leak if dampness and wetness remain in the flooring and walls once you leave? And what’s the point of water restoration services if the pipe leak’s source isn’t identified and repaired?
Finding the right restoration company to partner with doesn’t need to be complicated, either. CFRS is an experienced water damage remediation and restoration company that, over the past 25 years, has provided exceptional services to nearly 1,000 customers. Our 18 industry certifications and countless positive customer reviews mean you can confidently refer your customers to our company.
CFRS has a broad network of professional, highly qualified plumbers we work with and refer to our customers and who are equipped to tackle any size or scope water damage project. We believe in letting our plumbing partners manage their areas of expertise while we concentrate on what we do best: cleaning, drying, and sanitizing a customer’s home with the latest techniques and solutions. Our advanced water detection tools ensure no water source remains, helping homeowners avoid even more costly repairs down the road.
The entire team at CFRS has the expertise and knowledge needed to handle any water damage restoration job you send our way. We are Central Florida’s most experienced providers of water damage, mold damage, smoke damage, and fire damage restoration services. You and your customers can always rely on us to assess and address all water leaks, competently mitigating any water damage that’s occurred.
To learn more about teaming up with Central Florida Restoration Solutions as a referral partner and to learn more about how such an alliance can help you grow your plumbing business, contact us online today or call or text us at 407-988-6101.
