Water Damage Restoration in South Capitol, WA

South Capitol is the neighborhood directly south of the Legislative Building, between Capitol Way and Capitol Lake, and it is the most intact collection of early twentieth-century houses in Olympia. Most of it went up between 1895 and 1935 as the capital grew: craftsman bungalows, foursquares, Tudor cottages, and a few Queen Annes on narrow lots under old maples and firs, with detached garages down the alleys. The core of it has been a National Register historic district since 1991, which means exterior changes get a second look and the old materials are worth saving.

Every one of those houses sits on a dirt crawl space over glacial till that stays saturated from November to March, and most were plumbed with galvanized steel supply lines and cast iron drains that are now a century old. The lots slope west toward Capitol Lake, so the houses on the lake side take groundwater at the downhill wall of the crawl space every wet season. The arctic weeks of late December 2021 and December 2022 split galvanized lines behind bathtubs and in crawl spaces up and down these blocks.

This site puts South Capitol homeowners through by phone to an independent local water damage provider who goes under the hatch before deciding anything.

South Capitol water damage in a 1910 craftsman

Water on the dirt under a bungalow after a week of December rain, with the insulation hanging wet between the joists, is a crawl space water extraction. A galvanized line that finally split under the kitchen is a burst pipe cleanup, and the fir floor above it is metered from both sides before anyone decides whether it stays. A stain on a lath-and-plaster ceiling after a windstorm worked the flashing on a 1920s chimney is roof leak water damage.

Living next to the Capitol Campus

The neighborhood's north edge is the Washington State Capitol Campus, and the same bluff the Legislative Building stands on runs south under these houses toward Capitol Lake, which is why water moves downhill through the block toward the lake side. Rebuild permits for plumbing, wiring, and structure go through the city's Permit Center, and work visible from the street in the historic district may need a review by the city's heritage commission as well. The pumping and drying need neither. Tell the provider the house is in the historic district so the crew knows to save the fir floors and plaster where the readings allow.

Call (360) 364-8868 and describe what you found under the hatch. We put you through to an independent local water damage provider serving South Capitol.