Fort Collins Water Damage Restoration

Fort Collins Learned About Water the Hard Way

On July 28, 1997, up to 14.5 inches of rain fell on Fort Collins in 31 hours. Spring Creek came out of its banks, five people died, roughly 200 homes were lost and about 1,500 homes and businesses were damaged. It remains the worst natural disaster in the city’s history, and it triggered a stormwater overhaul so significant that Fort Collins largely avoided the damage that hit the rest of Northern Colorado in 2013.

That’s a genuinely good story about a well-run city. It’s also why Fort Collins homeowners are, in our experience, the most likely in Northern Colorado to assume flooding is a solved problem. The infrastructure got better. The houses didn’t.

Old Town’s housing stock is the real story

Fort Collins has around 77,800 housing units and a large share of the Old Town core predates 1940. Those homes are wonderful and they fail in predictable ways:

• Galvanized supply pipe that has been rusting from the inside for eighty years, and fails as a pinhole that becomes a split
• Cast iron drain lines corroding from the inside out, cracking at the joints
• Stone, brick and early poured foundations with no modern waterproofing, no vapor barrier and no perimeter drain
• Basements finished in the 1970s and 80s over materials that hold water instead of shedding it
• Additions and remodels stacked over decades, where the plumbing is a museum of four different eras

When water gets into a house like that, it doesn’t behave the way it does in a new build. It travels along century-old framing and shows up two rooms away.

Half of Fort Collins rents — and that slows everything down

Renters occupy 48.4% of occupied housing units in Fort Collins, and CSU enrolled 34,412 students in fall 2025. In a rental, the person who discovers the leak usually isn’t the person who can authorize the repair. We routinely arrive at a Fort Collins rental where water ran for two days while a tenant waited for a property manager to call back.

If you’re a tenant: report it in writing immediately, photograph everything, and know that you can call us for an assessment. If you’re an owner or manager: give your tenants a number to call at 2 a.m. Every hour of delay is compounding cost, and drying a wall is far cheaper than rebuilding one.

Flash flooding still happens here

Improved stormwater infrastructure reduces risk; it doesn’t eliminate it. Summer thunderstorms over the foothills can still drop rain faster than any system moves it, and low-lying properties, window wells and below-grade entries still take on water. If your home sits near a drainage, know where your water goes before the storm, not during it.

Fort Collins Neighborhoods We Work In

We respond throughout Fort Collins and the 80521, 80524, 80525, 80526 and 80528 areas — Old Town, the CSU area and West Side, Campus West, Rigden Farm, Harmony and the south corridor, Fossil Creek, Registry Ridge, Maple Hill, Timberline, and the newer east-side neighborhoods toward Timnath. We cover Timnath, Wellington, Windsor and Loveland with the same crew and the same response time.

What Happens When You Call Us

1. We answer. A real person, 24/7, including 3 a.m. on a holiday.
2. We’re on site fast. We’re based in Johnstown, central to Northern Colorado — not dispatching a truck from Denver.
3. We find all of it. Thermal imaging and moisture meters map where the water actually travelled, including inside walls and under flooring.
4. We extract and dry. Commercial air movers and dehumidifiers placed by calculation, with daily readings until materials hit dry standard.
5. We handle your insurer. We document the loss the way adjusters need it and work directly with all carriers.

Call Us Before You Call Your Insurance Company

This is the single most useful thing we tell Fort Collins homeowners. If you call your insurer first, a claim gets opened based on a description of damage nobody has actually assessed yet. If you call us first, we document the loss properly — moisture readings, thermal images, a real scope — and the claim gets filed with evidence behind it. It’s a smoother claim and a scope that reflects the true damage.

Not sure it’s bad enough to call? Call anyway. Our moisture detection tools tell us in minutes what you can’t see. We would much rather tell you your home is dry than meet you in a month with a mold problem.

Fort Collins Water Damage Questions We Get Constantly

How fast can you get to my Fort Collins home?

Typically about 60 minutes, 24/7. We’re based in Johnstown and run Fort Collins constantly — it’s a straight shot up I-25 or College.

I rent in Fort Collins and my apartment flooded. Who do I call?

Notify your landlord or property manager in writing immediately, and photograph everything before anything gets moved. You can call us for an assessment too — we deal with property managers and insurers constantly and can tell you what’s actually happening in the walls. Your belongings are your renters insurance; the building is theirs.

My Old Town house is over a hundred years old. Does that change the work?

Yes, and it should. Old plaster, original hardwood, stone foundations and knob-and-tube-era construction all dry differently than modern drywall over a slab. Aggressive demolition on a historic home destroys value that can’t be bought back, so we dry in place wherever the readings let us.

My basement took on water but it seems dry now. Do I still need someone?

Yes, get it checked. Surfaces dry long before the wall cavities, insulation and subfloor beneath them do. Mold can begin growing in trapped moisture within 24 to 48 hours.

Will my homeowners insurance cover this?

Usually, when the water is sudden and accidental — a burst pipe, a failed supply line, an appliance letting go. Gradual seepage and long-term neglect typically aren’t covered, which is one more reason not to wait. We work with all carriers.

How much does water damage restoration cost in Fort Collins?

It depends entirely on how far the water travelled and what it soaked, so any number quoted before an inspection is a guess. Our inspection is free, and in most cases the work is covered by your homeowners policy.

Local Matters Here

Revive Restoration is owned by Levi, born and raised in Northern Colorado, and family operated since 2016. We know which Fort Collins neighborhoods have which problems, because we’ve been in their basements. When a supply line lets go in an Old Town kitchen in January, you’re calling neighbors — not a franchise call center in another state.

Water damage in Fort Collins? Call (720) 340-3499 now. 24/7 emergency response, free inspection, and we work directly with every insurance carrier.

Learn more about our water damage restoration and mold remediation services, see every community we cover on our service areas page, or read our Fort Collins guides on what to expect during the restoration process, water damage in Old Town’s older homes, flash flood risk after Spring Creek, water damage for rental property owners, the first 24 hours after water damage, and spring snowmelt basement flooding. Nearby: Timnath, Wellington, Windsor and Loveland.