SERVPRO of University, SE Orlando: Cleanup and Restoration in Colonialtown
Colonialtown runs along both sides of Colonial Drive where the Mills 50 district gives way to residential streets, and most of the housing here was framed between the 1920s and the 1950s. That matters more than people realize when a pipe lets go. A water loss in a Colonialtown bungalow is not the same job as a water loss in a 2005 tract home off Alafaya, and it should not be handled the same way. SERVPRO of University, SE Orlando works in these older blocks between Bumby Avenue and Mills, and our crews come in knowing the difference.
How does a water loss unfold in Colonialtown?
The plumbing tells you the age of the house. Many Colonialtown bungalows still carry original or partially original cast-iron drain lines under the floor, and cast iron in Central Florida soil has a service life it exceeded decades ago. When the bottom of the pipe scales out and channels, you get slow leaks under bathrooms and kitchens that show up as a soft spot in the hardwood or a stain creeping along a baseboard, often months of hidden saturation before anyone notices. Overhead, galvanized supply lines and aging water heater connections fail suddenly rather than slowly. A supply line that has been threading water through corroded fittings since the Eisenhower administration does not give much warning.
Then there is the wall assembly. A large share of Colonialtown interiors are plaster over lath, not drywall. Wet drywall usually gets cut out. Wet plaster is a different call: it holds moisture longer, it dries slower, but it can often be dried in place and saved, and in a 1926 bungalow, saving the original plaster preserves the character and value of the house. Our technicians use infrared cameras and moisture meters to map exactly how far water has traveled inside a plaster wall or under a heart-pine floor, so drying decisions are based on readings rather than guesswork.
Can the original hardwood floors be saved?
Often, yes, if the response is fast and the drying is controlled. Original oak and pine flooring in Colonialtown homes will cup when water gets underneath it, but cupped is not the same as ruined. With truck-mounted extraction to pull standing water immediately and a properly staged drying setup, wood that would otherwise be torn out and replaced with something newer and lesser can frequently be brought back flat. That salvage-first mindset runs through how we approach every older home in the neighborhood: restore the original material where it is technically sound to do so, replace only what is genuinely lost, and document the reasoning either way. Insurance adjusters generally respond well to that documentation, and we coordinate with them directly so the homeowner is not stuck translating.
Renovations, infill, and the losses they create
Colonialtown's small lots have seen a steady run of gut renovations, additions, and new infill construction squeezed between original bungalows. Renovation work is a common source of water and fire claims here: a new bathroom tied into an eighty-year-old drain stack, a nail through a supply line that does not leak until the walls are closed, temporary electrical during a remodel. When something goes wrong mid-renovation, the loss often involves both new material and irreplaceable old material in the same room. We handle that mix regularly, including mold remediation when a slow leak inside a renovated wall cavity has been feeding growth for months. Mold work in occupied older homes gets full containment and HEPA air scrubbers so spores are not pushed through the rest of the house during removal.
Fire losses in the neighborhood follow the age of the systems too. Older panels, overloaded circuits in homes wired long before modern loads, and kitchen fires in tight galley kitchens are the recurring patterns. Smoke behaves differently in a plaster-and-hardwood house than in a drywall box, it drives into surfaces that can often be cleaned and restored rather than demolished, which is exactly the kind of judgment call our IICRC-certified crews are trained to make.
Mills 50 businesses live close to the margin
The commercial blocks where Colonialtown meets the Mills 50 district hold some of Orlando's most beloved independent businesses, restaurants, galleries, vintage shops, and studios operating out of buildings that predate their industries. A water loss in one of these storefronts is rarely simple: the plumbing is old, the walls are plaster, the neighboring suite shares everything, and the operator cannot afford a month of closed doors. Our commercial water damage restoration on these blocks is scoped around staying open, overnight extraction, drying equipment placed and cycled so customers can still walk in, containment that keeps demolition dust away from inventory, and a file that keeps landlord and tenant carriers moving. Fire damage restoration gets the same urgency, because a kitchen fire's real damage to a small restaurant is measured in lost regulars, and the faster the soot, odor, and smoke residue are gone, the fewer of them wander off.
The homes ask for a different promise: that what makes them worth owning survives the loss. A Colonialtown bungalow's value lives in its heart-pine floors, its plaster, its original doors and casings, and a restoration company that treats those as demolition targets is destroying value with a work order. Our approach runs the other way. Water damage restoration in a pre-war house starts with measurement, salvage decisions get made with readings and photographs, and fire damage restoration favors cleaning and sealing original material over ripping it out. The contents get equal care, since houses this established tend to hold letters, photographs, and furniture that no settlement check replaces. We restore those the way the neighborhood restores its houses: patiently, and on purpose.
Who is doing the work
SERVPRO of University, SE Orlando is locally owned by Susan and Vern Boatman, who have operated SERVPRO franchises in Central Florida for more than 15 years. That is long enough to have dried out a lot of pre-war houses between downtown and the east side, and long enough to know that Colonialtown homeowners tend to care as much about what gets saved as what gets replaced.
And when a home needs biohazard cleanup after an unattended passing or an accident, our crews handle it with compliance and compassion in equal measure.
If you find water where it should not be, a buckling floor near the bathroom, a ceiling stain under the AC air handler, the smell that says a cast-iron line has been leaking under the slab, call SERVPRO of University, SE Orlando. Our phones are answered live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and a real person will start the process the moment you call.
