Blog | Jarvis Restoration

What to Do About a Flooded Crawl Space

December 18th, 2023

If you start searching the internet for information on flooding and storm damage, you’ll come across many articles discussing what to do if your basement floods. A flooded basement is a serious problem—but if you live in Southern California, it’s not a problem at all. Because you don’t have a basement.

Instead, what our homes have—if they don’t sit directly on a concrete slab—are crawl spaces, a narrow area between the ground floor of a house and the ground itself. If you’ve ever had to enter the crawl space for your house, you know why it’s called that: it’s a tight space that requires moving on your hands and knees to navigate—if you ever need to navigate it.

If your home has a crawl space, it can flood just like a basement and create a serious danger of water damage. This flooding can happen from rainfall, but also because of plumbing leaks—so there’s no time of the year when you’re totally out of danger of flooding in the crawl space.

We’re the local experts for handling water damage in Orange County, CA, and in this post we’ll talk about what to do if you have a flooded crawl space.

DIY Fire Damage Restoration? Here’s Why This Is a Bad Idea

December 11th, 2023

We’ve provided restoration services for fire damage in Orange County for more than fifty years, so we understand how emotionally stressful and devastating it is for families who are affected. Often, this stress leads to people trying to take charge of the damage right away with DIY restoration efforts, plunging themselves into work to help deal with the situation.

There are important steps to take immediately after your home has suffered fire damage, including making a catalog of lost items, photographing and videoing the damage, contacting your insurance provider, and remaining clear of the damaged area. What you should not do is attempt to fix the fire damage yourself—instead, get our team involved as soon as possible so we can start the restoration process. Below we’ll explain why you need to leave this job to experts like us.

Christmas Decorating and Home Fire Safety Tips—Make the Season Merry, Bright, and Safe!

November 20th, 2023

The holiday season is upon us, and it’s time to turn our homes into winter wonderlands with twinkling lights, festive decorations, and the warmth of the holiday spirit. While decking the halls is a cherished tradition, it’s crucial to prioritize safety, especially when it comes to preventing house fires during this joyful time.

We’re your trusted experts when it comes to restoration of fire damage in Orange County, and in this post we want to share our knowledge about fire safety during the decorative season. Below are our crucial home fire safety tips to make your season merry, bright, and safe.

Hidden Dangers of Untreated Smoke Damage in Your Home

November 6th, 2023

Where there’s fire, there’s smoke. That’s inverting the standard saying, but it’s important for homeowners to realize the enormous threat that smoke damage poses long after a house fire has been put out. Managing smoke damage is a crucial part of the fire damage restoration in Orange County, CA that we do.

Smoke is insidious. It can seep into the seams and material of your house and leave behind hidden dangers that not only endanger your house’s structural integrity but threaten your family’s health. We understand that if you’ve just gone through a fire in your house, you’ll be focused on the destruction you can see. But the hidden dangers, such as smoke damage, are often even worse because they’re harder to address and are sometimes simply ignored.

Helping to Create a Mold-Free Living Environment

October 23rd, 2023

You don’t want mold inside your home, but you may not realize how much building damage mold can do and how it affects the health of people in your household. Mold will create serious structural damage if it gets into the wood of a house, and the health risks can be severe.

You want to have a mold-free environment if possible. Sometimes that will require working with home restoration professionals like us to handle mold remediation in Orange County, CA. There are also steps you can take to prevent mold growth in the first place. We’ll take a look at the best paths to a mold-free living environment for you and your family.

Tips for Salvaging Your Valuable Belongings After a Disaster

October 9th, 2023

The emotional effect of a disaster such as flooding or a wildfire can feel overwhelming. If you’re facing a crisis because of serious damage to your home and property, salvaging your most valuable possessions is key to recovery. Below, we’ve offered a guide with practical tips that will help you preserve precious possessions in the wake of a disaster.

5 Signs of Water Damage in Your Ceiling

September 25th, 2023

We often talk about dealing with the damage that can occur to homes due to large-scale catastrophes, such as wildfires or massive flooding. But damage from water, fire, and other elements doesn’t always emerge after big disasters. They can be more insidious, occurring when you don’t know to look for them.

One of the more common types of water damage that homes suffer is from leaky roofs. Homeowners often don’t pay much attention to their roofs, allowing them to sustain damage over time and age to the point where they don’t provide the waterproofing necessary to protect the house. Since we recently went through massive rainstorms in Southern California, water damage coming through a leaky roof is a major worry.

We want to look at ways you can tell you’ve got water damage to your ceiling. Then you can call us for an inspection to see if we need to help with restoration for water damage in Orange County, CA.

The Wildfire Season: What You Need to Know as a SoCal Homeowner

September 11th, 2023

After a summer that included a surprise tropical storm, we’re now moving into the prime period for wildfire danger in Southern California. For most local homeowners, wildfires are the most terrifying threats possible. Many have already had the experience of fires getting too close to their homes—or had their homes destroyed.

One piece of good news for this season: the massive August rainfall will help push back the wildfire threat. That doesn’t mean you can just assume you won’t have to deal with the danger of fires, however.

Fire damage restoration in Orange County, CA is an important part of what we do at Jarvis Restoration. In this post, we’ll share important information about the wildfire season, how to protect your home, and how to prepare for an emergency.

Important Storm Awareness and Safety Tips for the Future

August 28th, 2023

It isn’t often that California suffers the brunt of a tropical storm, but our recent encounter with Tropical Storm Hilary—which the governor declared a state emergency—is a blunt reminder that we’re also vulnerable to major weather events in SoCal. It’s not just something that happens in Florida.

This is one of the reasons that we handle restoration for water damage in Orange County, CA. People are often so focused on worries about damage from wildfires that they forget about the threat of storm damage and aren’t prepared for it or know what to do about it afterwards.

We hope that your home didn’t sustain any damage from the recent tropical storm. We’d also like to help you to prepare for the next time this occurs. We’re going to share with you important storm preparation information. Here are several steps to take to make sure you’re ready for major storm activity in the future.

The Top 11 Causes of House Fires in Southern California

July 17th, 2023

Of all the worries people in Orange County have about damage to their homes, fire is the biggest. Our wildfire season is devastating for many homeowners, and the number of wildfires and the length of the season is only increasing.

We handle restoration services for fire damage in Orange County, CA, but we seriously hope that you won’t have to call us in the future! We’ve offered advice before on how you can protect your home from fire damage, and in today’s post we’d like to offer you some more education. We’re going to look at the top 11 causes of house fires in Southern California. Wildfires aren’t the only reason for concern!