Water Damage in Lafayette: What We Actually See Here

Lafayette was founded in 1888 as a coal town — Mary Miller platted 37 acres and named it for her late husband, DeLafayette “Lafe” Miller — and the housing in Old Town still reflects that. The dominant style there is the miner’s cottage: a small, one-story house with a pyramid roof, no ornament and a modest footprint. Some of them were not even built where they now sit. Company houses were physically hauled in from the Simpson Mine camp in the 1930s, including one built in 1910 that still stands on East Dounce Street. Houses like that sit on whatever foundation was practical at the time: shallow crawlspaces, patched drain lines, and floor systems close enough to grade that standing water reaches the joists fast.

Then the town grew in waves: Centaur Village townhomes in the late 1970s, McStain selling Indian Peaks East from 1997 and Indian Peaks West from about 2001, and Silver Creek filling in more recently between 111th and Highway 287. A city of about 30,400 now spans roughly 130 years of construction practice. The cottage in Old Town wets from below; the two-story in Indian Peaks wets from above and drains through the ceiling into the family room.

Coal Creek Runs Through the Middle of Town

Coal Creek is Lafayette’s defining water feature and its defining water risk. In the September 2013 flood, flows overtopped its banks and inundated homes and roads in Centaur Village — enough that the city and the Mile High Flood District completed a Coal Creek and Rock Creek flood hazard delineation and drainageway master plan and pursued improvements there. Near the creek corridor the exposure is real, and it does not take a hundred-year storm: one intense summer cell over the drainage can put water through window wells and into a finished lower level in under an hour.

Old Mining Ground and Old Cottages

Lafayette sat at the center of the Boulder-Weld coal field from the late 1880s through the 1930s, and that legacy lies under parts of town alongside the region’s shrink-swell clay. Ground that moves is hard on rigid pipe. In Old Town we regularly find sewer laterals shifted or separated at a joint, letting roots in and eventually pushing sewage back through a basement floor drain. That is a Category 3 loss: porous material out, the space contained and disinfected, the structure dried — not a shop-vac-and-bleach job.

How Fast We Can Reach Lafayette

We are based at 3787 Ronald Reagan Blvd, Unit 1, in Johnstown, roughly 30 miles north of Lafayette — I-25 south, then west on the Highway 7 corridor. That is usually about an hour in normal conditions, and our phone is answered 24/7, nights and holidays included.

Frequently Asked Questions About Water Damage in Lafayette

Is my home near Coal Creek still at risk after the flood improvements?

The drainageway planning and the improvements at Centaur Village were a real response to what happened in 2013, when Coal Creek overtopped its banks and inundated homes and roads there. They reduce risk; they do not remove it. Intense local storms can still overwhelm street drainage and push water into window wells and lower levels. Keep wells covered and clear, and grade soil away from the foundation.

What makes an Old Town miner’s cottage different to dry out?

These are small, low houses, often over shallow crawlspaces, and many have been remodeled several times. Water spreads under the floor rather than across it, so what you see in the living room understates the problem. We get under the structure, remove saturated insulation and debris, and dry the crawlspace and framing directly. Drying only the finished room above is how odor and mold come back.

My basement floor drain backed up. Is that an emergency?

Treat it as one. A backup through a floor drain usually means the lateral is blocked or has separated, and the water is contaminated. Keep people and pets out of the area, do not run more water down any drain, and call us. We contain the space, remove affected carpet, pad and lower drywall, disinfect, and dry the structure, then document all of it for your claim.

Do you work in Indian Peaks, Silver Creek and the newer subdivisions?

Yes, and those homes fail differently than Old Town. Late-1990s and newer builds have upstairs laundry, second-floor bathrooms and braided supply lines, so a failure travels down through ceilings and wall cavities and can affect three levels before anyone notices. We use thermal imaging to trace the actual path of the water rather than guessing from the visible stain.

Should I call my insurance company before calling Revive?

Call us first. Getting the source stopped and the damage photographed and moisture-mapped before anything is torn out gives your claim a much stronger foundation, and adjusters take that documentation seriously. We work with all carriers and will talk to yours directly. Starting a claim before the true extent of the loss is recorded tends to work against homeowners.

Revive is locally owned by Levi, born and raised in Northern Colorado, family operated since 2016, and available around the clock. For a free inspection call (720) 340-3499. Our service areas page lists every town we cover, including neighboring Louisville, Erie and Niwot. You can also read more about our water damage restoration work.