Harwich is the cranberry town. The first commercial bogs on the Cape were dug here in the 1840s, and the bogs, the Herring River, and a string of kettle ponds still hold the low ground through the middle of town. Harwich Center has houses from the 1700s and 1800s. The neighborhoods off Route 39 and Queen Anne Road filled in with Capes, ranches, and colonials from the 1960s through the 1990s, many on full basements, and the south shore along Nantucket Sound holds cottages and three harbors.
Bog country is wet country. The Herring River and the pond lots sit on a water table that rises every spring and seeps into basements, and a sump pump that stops in a nor'easter power outage leaves a finished basement under water. On the shore, the January 4, 2018 nor'easter pushed the sound into the harbors and the beach roads. Cottages closed for the winter froze in the December 2022 and February 2023 cold snaps.
We connect Harwich homeowners with an independent local water damage provider by phone. You say what you found, and the provider takes it from there.
A finished basement near a bog or a pond with water behind the drywall is basement flooding cleanup. A frozen line in a closed-up shore cottage is frozen pipe cleanup, and the crew starts by working out how long it ran. A washer hose or a water heater that let go across the first floor needs water extraction and then a meter on every wall it touched.
Rebuild permits come from the Town of Harwich building department at the town hall in Harwich Center. Water service comes from the town's water department, and a leak on the street side of the meter is theirs. Tell the crew if the house backs up to a bog or a pond, because those lots sit on the highest water table in town.
Call (508) 419-9161 now and tell us what you see. A local water damage provider serving Harwich takes it from there.
Standing water pumped out of a cottage, ranch, or motel room, then the first meter readings to see how far it traveled.
Air movers and dehumidifiers run by the readings until subfloor, framing, and plaster come back to their dry target in damp salt air.
Bay water, storm surge, and street runoff pumped out after a nor'easter, with soaked material removed and the rest dried.
Cleanup after a supply line froze and split in a second home or an unheated wall, then drying what the thaw soaked for days.
Standing water pumped from under a Cape or cottage on a high water table, then joists and subfloor checked and dried.
Wet insulation, ceilings, and walls dried out after wind-driven rain, an ice dam, or lifted shingles let a storm in.
A Mid-Cape basement pumped out after seepage, a sump failure, or a burst pipe, with finished walls and flooring metered and dried.
Furniture, rugs, papers, and keepsakes from a wet home sorted, dried, cleaned, and listed so you know what was saved.