Top-Rated Basement Flood & Sump Pump Backup Cleanup Team in Birmingham, Troy, Rochester Hills & West Bloomfield, Oakland County, Michigan, On Site in 25 Minutes

Prime Restoration is a top-rated, highly local water damage restoration team with four Oakland County offices: our Birmingham headquarters at 801 S Adams Rd, our Troy office at Coventry Place, 1621 W Big Beaver Rd, our Rochester Hills office in Hampton Professional Park, 705 Barclay Cir, and our West Bloomfield office at 5600 W Maple Rd. A crew is typically in your basement in 25 minutes, 24 hours a day. Family water damage restoration business since 1988.

We handle every kind of flooded basement in the county: water in the basement after a storm, a sump pump that failed or lost power, sewer water backing up through the floor drain, a burst water heater or supply line, window wells that filled and seepage at the base of the wall. We pump it out, remove what cannot be saved, dry the structure, confirm it dry with moisture readings and rebuild it. One team from the first call to the last coat of paint. Homeowners pick us for the response time and for the customer service: you get a direct phone number, a daily update and a written scope before anything is torn out.

Basement flooding in Oakland County is local. A Birmingham basement on a combined sewer floods for a different reason than a Rochester Hills basement on a sump. The sections below explain what is different in each of our office cities, with links to the county and city offices that run your sewer.

The source of the water decides the whole job: what comes out, how the basement is cleaned and how long it takes. These are the six we see most across Oakland County.

Older homes flood more often and cost more to dry: older sewers, older footing drains, older plumbing and more finished square footage that was never built to get wet. This table ranks our four Oakland County office cities by the share of homes built before 1980, from U.S. Census Bureau data (American Community Survey 2019 to 2023, table B25034), then adds what each city publishes about its own sewer system.

The south end of the county is the oldest: Ferndale, Oak Park, Berkley, Hazel Park, Madison Heights, Clawson and Royal Oak all have more than four in five homes built before 1980, and most of them sit in the combined-sewer belt that drains to the George W. Kuhn basin. The newest housing is in the northwest and the lakes, where sumps and footing drains carry the risk instead.

The Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner operates three wastewater treatment facilities, four retention treatment basins and 16 community septic systems. The largest basin serves the south end of the county.

The George W. Kuhn Drainage District, formerly the Twelve Towns Drainage District, serves all or part of 14 communities over 24,500 acres upstream of the Red Run Drain. In heavy rain, combined sewage that is typically more than 93 percent stormwater exceeds the outlet to Detroit, and the excess is diverted to the Kuhn basin. That basin can hold and treat 150 million gallons before it discharges treated water to the Red Run Drain. Royal Oak names itself a member of the district.

What that means at one house: in a combined-sewer neighborhood, the rate of rain matters more than the total. A short, hard storm fills the pipe faster than the basin can take it, and the pressure finds the lowest opening, which is the basement floor drain. In a separated-sewer subdivision the same storm loads the footing drains and the sump instead. Two basements a mile apart can flood from opposite causes in the same hour, which is why we ask where the water came in before we quote the job.

The county's one homeowner stormwater incentive is RainSmart Rebates, up to $2,000 for rain barrels, rain gardens or tree planting. Keeping roof water out of the sewer helps the whole street.

If you believe a public sewer or storm sewer backed up into your basement, Michigan law sets a short deadline. Under MCL 691.1419, you must notify the government agency in writing within 45 days after the damage was discovered, or should have been discovered with reasonable diligence. Miss it and you lose the right to compensation under the statute.

The notice itself is short. The law limits it to:

• your name, address and telephone number
• the address of the affected property
• the date you discovered the damage
• a brief description of the claim

Proving the claim is harder. Under MCL 691.1417, the agency is immune unless you show five things: it was the right agency, the system had a defect, the agency knew or should have known about it, it failed to fix the defect in a reasonable time, and the defect was a substantial cause of your damage. That is a legal question for an attorney.

What we do: we photograph the floor drain, the waterline and every damaged item before anything moves, record moisture readings with dates and times, and give you the file. If you send the notice, you send it with evidence. Troy publishes the same 45-day requirement on its own claims page.

Sump pump backup is the most searched basement problem in Oakland County, by our Keyword Planner data. Most sump floods we clean up come from one of four things: the power went out, the float switch stuck, the pump wore out after years of cycling, or the discharge line outside froze or got crushed.

Power is the big one. The February 22, 2023 ice storm left close to 500,000 DTE customers without power, and the National Weather Service called it the widest ice storm footprint for metro Detroit since April 2003. The July 3, 2026 storm took power from nearly 400,000 Southeast Michigan customers at the peak. A sump without a battery backup or a generator stops working the minute the power does.

Once the water is out, we dry the basement and show you the readings. Ask us about a battery backup or water-powered backup pump while the crew is there. It is the single change that prevents most repeat sump floods.

Most basement floods we clean up in Oakland County go through an insurance claim. We build the file your adjuster asks for from the first hour: dated photos of every room and every damaged item, moisture maps, daily drying logs with temperature and humidity, and an itemized Xactimate estimate. You make the claim decisions with your carrier, and your carrier decides coverage. We keep the record of what got wet complete, so nothing about the loss is in question.

Read your policy for three separate lines: sudden water discharge, sump overflow and sewer or drain backup. Many Michigan policies treat them differently and some carry their own limit. Ask your agent what yours says. Our insurance claims guide and how to file a water damage claim in Michigan walk through it.

Many of the basements we restore in Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Troy and West Bloomfield are high-value finished lower levels: theaters, gyms, wine storage, wet bars, guest suites and custom millwork. We pack out and inventory contents, protect the finished floors upstairs, keep a clean, quiet job site and match original materials on the rebuild. Homeowners with a lot at stake call us for that level of care, and for the 0% APR financing when the deductible is a problem.