In general terms the average water damage repair job takes about 45 days to complete. That’s a month and a half of inconvenience that could be avoided by regular maintenance on your part. These are professionals who will do the work as fast and as efficiently as possible but it will be unavoidably inconvenient. There are a few things you can do to limit or eliminate the potential damage to your home.

• If you’re planning on leaving your home for any great length of time you should switch off the water at the main source to your home. This will prevent water leaks from happening while you’re away and are unable to deal with them. Even if only leaving for an hour you should switch off any running water such as a washing machine.
• If you have rubber supply lines leading to your washing machine, dishwasher or other appliance you should consider replacing them with metal ones. The rubber lines distend, burst and we are out with age. Metal supply lines have a much longer life expectancy and are able to deal with much more pressure.
• You should flush your water heater tank twice a year to prevent the harmful buildup of minerals inside of it. By flushing it twice a year you are much more likely to get the full life expectancy out of your appliance and to not wake up one day to find your house flooded by a broken water heater.