National Preparedness Month: Tips Restorers Can Share With Customers

The water losses that stay small usually have one thing in common: somebody in the house knew what to do in the first few minutes. That person is almost never on your payroll. It's the homeowner, the tenant, or the teenager who happened to be home, and what they knew was taught to them by someone, sometime, before the pipe let go.

September is a good month to do some of that teaching. It's National Preparedness Month, when FEMA's Ready Campaign spends the month encouraging Americans to prepare for emergencies, with plenty of guidance at Ready.gov on making a household plan and building a kit. Restorers can add something to that conversation that most people never hear: how to keep a bad day inside a house from becoming a bad month.

Below are six tips worth passing to customers, partners, and your community, written so you can borrow the wording. After them, a few ways to share them that read like help rather than an ad.

Tip one: find the main water shutoff before you need it

This is the single most useful thing a homeowner can learn, and plenty of people don't know where theirs is until the day they need it.

• Find the main shutoff. Start where the water line comes into the house: a basement, crawlspace, utility room, or garage wall, or in some homes, outside near the meter.
• Make sure everyone in the house who is old enough knows where it is and which way it turns.
• Hang a tag on it so nobody has to guess.
• Learn the smaller shutoffs too: under each sink, behind each toilet, behind the washing machine.
• If the main valve is stuck, corroded, or hard to reach, call a plumber. Don't force it, because a valve that breaks in your hand creates the problem you were preparing for.

There's a law of nature that says the main shutoff is always behind the heaviest thing in the basement. Moving them now is much easier than moving them while water is coming through the ceiling.

Tip two: take a photo and video inventory

After a loss, people are asked to remember what was in a room they can no longer stand in. A walkthrough recording made on an ordinary afternoon helps.

• Walk each room with a phone recording video, and say what things are as you go.
• Open closets, cabinets, and drawers. The garage and the basement count.
• Photograph model and serial number labels on electronics and appliances.
• Keep receipts or photos of receipts for bigger purchases.
• Store a copy somewhere other than the house, like a cloud account or a family member's inbox.
• Redo it every so often, and after any big purchase.

If contents are ever damaged, that record spares the family from rebuilding a room from memory, and it gives the adjuster something to work from.

Tip three: keep the policy information where you can find it

Most people can't name their policy number without digging, and the worst time to dig is while standing in water.

• Save the insurance company's name, the policy number, the claims phone number, and the agent's contact information in your phone.
• Keep a paper copy somewhere you could reach even if part of the house is off limits.
• If you have questions about what your policy covers, ask your agent now, on a calm day. Your agent can explain the policy, and on any claim, the adjuster determines coverage.

That last line matters for restorers sharing the tip, too. Point people to their agent. Don't answer coverage questions for them.

Tip four: test the sump pump

For homes that have one, the sump pump is the quiet appliance nobody thinks about until it fails during a storm.

• Pour a bucket of water slowly into the pit. As the float comes up, the pump should start, empty the pit, and shut off on its own.
• Check that the discharge line is clear and carries water away from the house.
• Listen for grinding, rattling, or a motor that runs and runs without moving water.
• Keep hands out of the pit while the pump is plugged in.
• Ask a plumber whether a backup option makes sense for the house.

If you want more to send along with this one, our basement water damage checklist covers what happens below grade when it goes wrong.

Tip five: press the button on every smoke alarm

The fire side of this business sees what happens when an alarm is missing or dead, so this one doesn't need much selling.

• Press the test button on every smoke alarm in the house.
• Replace batteries the way the manufacturer recommends.
• Check the manufacture date on the back of each alarm and follow the manufacturer's guidance on when to replace it.
• If the home has carbon monoxide alarms, test those too.

It takes a few minutes and a step stool, and the only side effect is a few seconds of very loud beeping.

Tip six: save a restorer's number before you need it

This is the one tip where you have an obvious motive, and it's fine to admit it: you'd like the number to be yours. The version that actually helps the homeowner is broader. Save a reputable local restorer's number, along with a plumber and an electrician, before anything goes wrong. Ankle-deep in water is a hard place to compare companies, and a number already in the phone saves a search at the worst possible moment.

How to share it without sounding like an ad

Useful information gets passed around. A sales pitch wearing a safety vest gets deleted. A few ways to keep it on the right side of that line:

• A short email to past customers. One tip per paragraph, plain language, your phone number at the bottom, and no offer attached.
• A social post per tip. Spread them across September. Use your own crew and your own shop for photos, never a customer's home, and our guide to what to post on social media covers what to keep out of frame.
• A fridge magnet with your number. Unglamorous, and still on the fridge long after the email is gone.
• A one-pager for partners. Property managers can share it with tenants, and agents with clients. Our post on working with property managers covers why being useful first matters. Ask before you put anyone else's logo on it.
• A page on your website. Put the list where people can find it next September, too. Our website checklist has more on what earns a page.

Pass it on

None of this is complicated, which is exactly why it's worth sending. Know the shutoff, keep a record of what's in the house, keep the policy details handy, test the sump pump and the smoke alarms, and save a few numbers before you need them. Send it during National Preparedness Month, point people to Ready.gov for the bigger plan, and keep your own pitch to a phone number at the bottom. The homeowner who reads it may still call you someday. The difference is that the water will already be off.