Stillwater is the county seat and the oldest town in the county, a lumber city from the 1840s on the St. Croix with a downtown of brick storefronts, hillside neighborhoods of Victorian houses on limestone foundations, and newer subdivisions of two-stories and walkouts spreading west toward Lake Elmo. The river has come up into the downtown more than once, and the hillside houses have been shedding water down their stone walls for a century and a half.
Stillwater is three kinds of house: the 1870s hillside home with a stone basement and no pit, the 1960s rambler on the flats with the first generation of drain tile, and the 1990s walkout on the west side with a pit that runs all spring.
From Stillwater, the call reaches an independent local water damage provider who works the whole valley. The provider looks at which one it is before deciding anything.
An 1880s basement on the hill that took water through the stone in a spring thaw is basement flooding cleanup, and the crew reads the wall rather than the pit that is not there. A west-side walkout whose pump quit in a summer storm is sump pump failure cleanup. A Victorian with a steep roof, a warm attic, and long eaves grows ice dams in every heavy winter, and the wet plaster wall below them is ice dam and roof leak water damage.
The Washington County Historical Society runs the Warden's House Museum on Main Street North, an 1853 stone house from the territorial prison that shows what a Stillwater foundation looked like when the town was new. The river-facing cities from Stillwater south are members of the Middle St. Croix Watershed Management Organization, which manages the stormwater that runs down the hill toward the St. Croix. Rebuild permits go through Stillwater's own inspections desk at city hall.
Call (651) 461-4569 and tell us what you see. We put you through to a local water damage provider serving Stillwater.
Water pulled off the slab and out from under the carpet pad in a finished lower level, then the walls metered before any drywall comes off.
Cleanup after the pit overflowed in a storm or a power outage, with the water gone and the finished basement dried on readings.
A stained or sagging ceiling under an upstairs bathroom or an ice dam, drained, dried, and opened only as far as the meter says.
The wall, floor, and lower level a split supply line soaked during a January cold snap, pumped out and dried once the water is off.
Wet attic insulation, ceilings, and exterior walls dried after meltwater backed up behind an ice dam or hail opened the roof.
A tank that let go in a lower-level utility room and the carpet, drywall, and storage it soaked, extracted and dried.
Air movers and dehumidifiers set by moisture readings and run until framing, subfloor, and drywall reach their dry target.
Drywall, trim, carpet, and paint put back in a finished basement after the drying log shows the framing is dry.