Prince George’s County · ZIP 20737
Riverdale, MD water damage restoration for Victorian homes, bungalows and apartments
College Park next door is shaped by the university. Riverdale Park is a smaller, older town of Victorian houses and bungalows on tree-lined streets, with garden apartment complexes across the tracks in East Riverdale. Both sides share old plumbing and shared walls, and both get wet in their own ways.
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Cellar or basement wet? Tell us what you see.
Water in the Basement? Call NowThe short version
First steps in Riverdale
Close the main, usually on the basement wall facing the street. In an apartment, call the management office. Keep clear of water near outlets. Photograph everything, then call us.
Riverdale at a glance
ZIP code 20737 covers the town of Riverdale Park and the neighboring community of East Riverdale in northern Prince George's County, with Hyattsville to the south, College Park to the north, Bladensburg to the south-east and Lanham to the east. Route 1, East-West Highway and Kenilworth Avenue cross the area, and the town takes its name from Riversdale, the early-1800s plantation house that still stands at its center.
Riverdale Park grew from the 1890s as a railroad and streetcar suburb, and its older streets hold Victorian and Queen Anne houses, foursquares and Craftsman bungalows, many with porches, plaster walls, wood floors and full basements. Postwar decades added Cape Cods and brick colonials, and East Riverdale filled with large garden apartment complexes and blocks of small brick homes. Newer development has grown up around the town's rail station.
Houses of that age share certain parts. Drain stacks and main lines are often cast iron, sewer laterals may be clay or cast iron, and supply lines can mix galvanized steel, early copper and newer work. The apartment buildings add stacked units, shared risers and management offices. A good share of homes on both sides are rented.
Many owners in the old town are restoring their houses with care, while across the tracks a large share of homes are rented apartments. Either way, the first call often involves more than one person: an owner and a tenant, or a manager and several residents on the same stack.
We connect homeowners, tenants, landlords and managers across Riverdale's ZIP code 20737 with local restoration crews.
The area is served by public water and sewer. The land slopes down toward the Anacostia's northern branches, and lower streets sit close to the water table, so basements there can stay damp after long rains. Mature street trees fill gutters every autumn and send roots into old sewer laterals, and summer thunderstorms test downspouts that empty right beside old foundations.
Many older houses have been renovated in stages, so one home can hold plumbing from several eras side by side, and original plaster and floors often survive under later finishes. That's why crews here take readings before deciding what to remove, and why careful drying in place is often possible.
Cast-iron drains in Riverdale's older houses
Before plastic drains became standard, houses were plumbed with cast-iron drain and vent pipes, joined with lead and oakum or later with rubber couplings. Most Riverdale Park houses built before about 1970 still have at least some of them. Cast iron lasts a long time, but it corrodes from the inside, especially along the bottom of horizontal runs in the basement ceiling, and joints loosen as a house settles over a century.
Drain leaks come and go because drains carry water only when fixtures are used. A stain on the basement ceiling that spreads after showers, a damp spot under the kitchen stack after the dishwasher drains, rust streaks along a horizontal pipe or a sewer smell near a cleanout all point the same way. Old lead bends under toilets are another weak point.
Drain water has already been used, so anything porous it soaks is treated as unclean rather than simply wet. Riverdale's older laterals are often clay or cast iron, and tree roots find their joints; the result is a basement drain that backs up during a heavy rain or a busy morning. A plumber scopes the line and repairs or replaces it. The restoration crew removes, cleans and dries.
Stain spreading after showers? A crew can dry it once the drain's fixed.
Call to Arrange a CrewShared walls in duplexes, rows and apartments
Much of East Riverdale's housing, and some of Riverdale Park's, is attached: duplexes sharing a center wall, short brick rows, and garden apartment buildings where homes share walls, floors and ceilings. Shared walls are masonry in older buildings and framed in newer ones. Either way, water that reaches the base of a shared wall keeps going, following joists, running along the joint between wall and floor and wicking into brick.
A leak in one home's kitchen or laundry can appear as a stain or wet carpet next door, sometimes before anyone at the source knows. In apartment buildings, stacked kitchens and baths mean the unit below usually finds the water first, and water can travel along risers past a floor before it shows.
After a leak near a shared wall or ceiling, readings on both sides show whether the neighbor's home is affected, and drying may need access to both. Tell your neighbor or the office early, and if either home is rented, tell the landlords too. Questions about who handles which repair go to the property owner or association and each party's own insurer.
Manager or landlord? Tell us which units or addresses are wet.
Managing a Building? Call UsWhat a moisture meter and thermal camera actually show
In an old house with plaster walls and wood floors, finding out how far water went matters as much as stopping it. A thermal camera shows surface temperature, not water. Wet areas often read cooler because evaporation draws heat away, so the camera shows patterns: a cool band along the bottom of a wall, or a shape on a ceiling below a bathroom. But drafts, ducts and cold exterior walls show up too, especially in older houses.
A moisture meter measures moisture in one material at one spot. Pin meters read wood and drywall through two small probes; pinless meters scan beneath the surface without marking it, which is useful on old plaster and finished floors. Readings only mean something compared with the same material in a dry part of the same house. Older plaster and wood give readings of their own, so the dry reference comes from the same house, not a chart.
The crew maps the wet area by taking readings at intervals until they reach dry material, which shows where to cut, where to dry in place and whether water crossed into the next home. During drying, repeat readings show progress, and matching the dry reference readings is what confirms the job is done.
Nearby communities and related services
Riverdale is part of our Washington Suburbs region. Services Riverdale callers use most:
- Moisture Detection & Inspection
- Sewage Backup Cleanup
- Basement Water Damage
- Multi-Unit & Apartment Water Damage
- Rental Property Water Damage
- Ceiling Water Damage Repair
Neighboring communities:
Talk to someone who knows Riverdale's older houses and apartments.
Get Connected to a Local CrewRiverdale water damage questions
Yes, it's slower and more careful. Sound plaster on lath is dense and can often be dried in place over several days, and cupped old boards frequently settle as they dry. Crews use pinless meters to avoid marking finishes and wait for stable readings.
The management office or landlord first, so they can reach the unit above and shut the water off. Put a bucket under the drip and photograph the damage. The crew dries your unit with its own records, and your belongings go to your renter's insurer.
Usually the lateral to the street is partly blocked, often by roots in an old clay line, or the sewer is overloaded in a heavy storm. The floor drain is the lowest opening, so water comes up there first. Stop running water, and have a plumber camera the line.
In an old brick or stone basement, a little seasonal dampness usually is, especially on low ground near the stream valleys. Standing water, a damp patch that keeps spreading, or wet framing above the foundation are not normal and are worth a closer look with a meter.
Scoop out leaves and silt so the drain at the bottom works, add a clear cover to keep rain and debris out, and grade the soil around the well so water runs away from it. A well without a drain may need one added by a plumber or drainage contractor.
In Riverdale Park's older houses, yes. Many still have original cast-iron stacks and main lines, which corrode from the inside and weep at joints after many decades. A plumber's camera inspection shows how much life a line has left and whether a section can be repaired.
Stay out of the water and don't touch anything electrical. Leave the area and call your utility, and have an electrician check before power is restored there. In an apartment, tell the office too. Once it's cleared, the crew can extract and dry.
In most older houses, on the basement wall facing the street where the service line comes in, often beside the meter. In apartments, look in the heater or laundry closet or under the kitchen sink, and ask the office whether your valve is on a riser.
Fans alone mostly push damp air around, and plaster, masonry and old wood let go of moisture slowly. Drying needs dehumidifiers to pull water out of the air, air movers aimed at wet surfaces, and meter readings to confirm when it's finished.
Old house or apartment in Riverdale? One call starts it.
We'll connect you with a crew that knows old drains, plaster and shared buildings.
Leak spreading after dark? Call now and we'll tell you when a crew can get there.
Call, Even After Dark