Flood water extraction from house basement

The problem

The householder made an insurance claim after water escaped from a blocked bath waste pipe and flooded the basement of their bungalow home.

Standing water was found across the subfloor void beneath the suspended timber floor. It was important to remove the water as soon as possible before it could potentially damage the structure of the house or become a health hazard for the people living in it.

The solution

Catalyst Services UK was tasked by its insurance client with responding to the claim. Its internal flood recovery team was commissioned to extract the water from the basement and sanitise the subfloor area, which could then be left to dry out. This work would allow a further assessment to be carried out to establish if further flood recovery work was needed.

Our team gained access to the basement through an existing opening in the bedroom floor. A risk assessment was carried out to establish a safe method to access the basement and carry out necessary work.

Fast response to basement flood

The escaped water was assessed as category 2 grey water, which meant it had a relatively low level of contamination. The flood recovery team wore PPE compliant with this type of wastewater.

They worked methodically through sections in the basement, using a submersible pump to remove water. Because it was found to be grey water, and Catalyst had responded to the claim quickly, it could be pumped directly into the home’s foul drain.

If the flood water had been left to stand for longer in the basement, it may have been categorised as black water, which posed a higher contamination risk.

This would have required it to be disposed of at a registered waste site, and required a more intensive decontamination process, increasing the cost of the claim.

Sanitisation to kill germs and prevent mould growth

Once the water had been cleared, the basement void, which had a natural soil base, was sanitised with disinfectant spray, to eliminate bacteria and viruses that may have been in the escaped water.

The sanitisation process also minimised the risk that mould spores, one of the possible contaminants in the grey water, could have taken hold and caused the spread of mould in the basement.