Best Water Damage Restoration Companies in Ferndale, MI

Prime Restoration, a top-rated, highly local company, does water damage restoration in Ferndale. A crew is typically on site in 25 minutes, 24/7. Prime gives a free estimate and a free 20-point moisture inspection, and bills your insurance company directly. It holds Michigan Residential Builder License #262500492 and a 5.0 rating on Google from 186 reviews. Call (586) 277-1069.

Ferndale is a 3.9-square-mile city of brick bungalows, basements and one very old sewer. The city says its sewer system is about 80 years old, and the same pipes carry rain and household waste to one basin. This page names the seven companies that serve Ferndale, shows who answers fast, and spends most of its length on the causes Ferndale owners call about most: a split pipe, a toilet that overflows, a washing machine hose, a water heater that lets go.

Who is the best water damage restoration company in Ferndale, MI?

For Ferndale homeowners in November 2026, Prime Restoration is the local choice. Crews leave from the Birmingham office at 801 S Adams Rd, which the drive-time model on this site puts 13 minutes from Ferndale, and from the Sterling Heights headquarters at 13854 Lakeside Circle and the Troy office at 1621 W Big Beaver Rd. A crew is typically on site in 25 minutes, 24/7. Prime extracts the water, dries the structure, removes wet material, treats for mold and rebuilds, all under one project manager. It holds Michigan Residential Builder License #262500492, and technicians are IICRC certified. Prime is a Certified Best Pick (Best Pick Reports, Detroit, 2027).

For a closer look at the service page, see water damage restoration in Ferndale. Next door, the Royal Oak comparison is at best water damage restoration companies in Royal Oak.

Ferndale Water Damage Restoration Companies Compared (November 2026)

Company	Office	24/7	Services listed	Repairs after cleanup	Published response window
1. Prime Restoration	Birmingham office, 13 min from Ferndale; Sterling Heights HQ; Troy office	Yes	Water, burst pipe, appliance leak, sewage, fire, mold, storm	Yes, MI Builder #262500492	Typically 25 min
2. X-Cel Restoration	953 E Cambourne St, Ferndale	Yes	Water, fire, mold, storm, contents, biohazard	Restoration and reconstruction; larger builds go to a sister company	60 to 90 min (stated)
3. DriForce Property Restoration	1470 Souter Blvd, Troy	Yes, phone line listed	Emergency restoration, storm	Confirm	Not published
4. 1-800 WATER DAMAGE of Royal Oak / Sterling Heights	32494 Dequindre Rd, Warren	Yes	Water, sewage, fire, mold, commercial	Not listed as a service	Not published
5. Roto-Rooter, Ferndale page	Street address not published	Yes	Water extraction, drying, mold, plumbing, drains	Wall and cavity rebuild listed	Not published
6. SERVPRO of Oak Park / Ferndale	825 Orchard St, Ferndale	Yes	Water, sewage, fire, storm, mold, biohazard, contents	Construction service listed	Not published
7. Paul Davis Restoration of Livonia & Farmington	12433 Globe St, Livonia	Yes	Water, fire, storm, mold, commercial	Full repairs mentioned	30 min and about 2 hrs (both stated)

Office locations, hours and service lists come from each company's own website, a franchise page, or a public business listing, read on November 12 and 13, 2026. "Confirm" means the source did not say. Call before you hire.

How This Comparison Was Compiled

ContractorsRanked, an independent ranking site where contractors cannot pay to change a rank or score, lists Prime Restoration first of 536 water damage restoration companies in Ferndale, with a CR Score of 72, as printed November 12, 2026. Prime is also a Certified Best Pick (Best Pick Reports, Detroit, 2027) and holds a 5.0 rating on Google from 186 reviews.

For every other company, the facts here come from public pages: the company's own site, the franchise page, Better Business Bureau and business directory listings, and the Michigan LARA license lookup for builder licenses. The same questions went to every company: where is the office, is it open 24/7, what work does it list, does it list repairs, and does it publish an arrival time. Several more companies were checked and left out because no page tied them to Ferndale. No company paid for placement.

Why do pipes fail in Ferndale houses, and what does the failure look like?

Ferndale's housing is old, close together and mostly built over full basements. The Ferndale housing profile on this site puts the oldest homes on the west side near Wanda, Saratoga and Pearson, where 1910s and 1920s wood-frame bungalows and four-squares stand on narrow lots. East Ferndale around Oakridge, Burdette and Garden Lane runs a little newer, late 1920s through the 1940s. The washer, the water heater and the furnace sit in the basement of most of these houses, so a leak from any of them ends on the same concrete floor, often within a few feet of the floor drain.

Four failures bring most Ferndale owners to the phone.

• A frozen or split supply pipe. Pipes run in outside walls, in unheated back porches and in crawl spaces under additions. When the cold gets in, the pipe freezes. The split often shows only on the thaw, when pressure returns and water sprays inside the wall. In a plaster house the first sign is a stain that spreads on the ceiling below.
• A toilet that overflows. A clog or a stuck fill valve sends water across a bathroom floor and down through the ceiling of the room below. A bungalow with a bathroom over the kitchen shows the damage in the kitchen light fixture first.
• A washing machine hose or valve. A rubber supply hose that bursts floods a basement or a first-floor laundry nook while the machine fills. The city also asks residents to hold laundry, showers and the dishwasher during heavy rain, because those loads go to the same combined sewer.
• A water heater that splits. A tank that rusts through releases its full volume across the basement floor in minutes, then keeps leaking from the supply line.

Each of these starts as clean water. Clean water turns into a bigger problem if it sits. The U.S. EPA guidance on mold says to dry wet materials within 24 to 48 hours. Plaster, hardwood and old trim hold water longer than new drywall, so the clock matters more in a Ferndale bungalow than in a 1990s subdivision house.

What happened to Ferndale pipes over the Christmas 2022 cold snap?

A January 8, 2023 story in the C & G Newspapers quoted the Ferndale public works director. He said the city took more than a dozen calls about burst pipes or frozen water meters during the cold stretch around Christmas. He said that when the city learns of a frozen pipe, it typically shuts off the water and replaces the water meter, and that property owners are responsible for the lines on their side of the meter. He said water service lines rarely freeze, but the city must thaw them when they are not buried deep enough. Vacant homes with the heat shut off or set too low were a recurring problem.

The city's advice in that story is plain. Keep the heat at about 60 degrees when you are away. Let water trickle in a kitchen sink during a hard freeze. Owners who leave for the winter can ask the city to shut off the water. Make sure crawl spaces are insulated or have a duct that blows heat into them.

Two things follow for a Ferndale owner. First, a rental house or an inherited house that sits empty for a month in January is the highest risk on the block. Second, the city draws a line at the meter. Everything on the house side is yours, and it is your insurer who looks at that loss.

What should you do in the first hour after a Ferndale pipe, toilet, washer or water heater lets go?

1. Close the valve you can reach. The city's own page on lead service lines says the street shutoff sits in the right-of-way, six feet underground, so you cannot use it. Close the main valve inside the house, usually near the meter. For a toilet, close the small valve behind the bowl. For a washer, close both hot and cold taps behind the machine. For a water heater, close the cold inlet on top of the tank.
2. Take the power off the wet area. Switch off the breaker for that room from a dry spot. If the panel is in a wet basement, call DTE at 1-800-477-4747 or a licensed electrician before you step in.
3. Move what you can lift. Rugs, boxes, books and electronics go to a dry room. Put foil or plastic blocks under furniture legs.
4. Photograph before you clean. Take a wide shot and a close shot of the failed part, the water line on the wall and each damaged item. A slow video walk through each room helps the adjuster.
5. Call Prime Restoration first. The number is (586) 277-1069. A crew is typically on site in 25 minutes. Prime helps get a licensed plumber to the house for the repair. The plumber fixes the failed part. The crew handles the water it released.
6. Then call your insurer. Give the date, the source and what you did to stop the water. The carrier decides what the policy covers.

Two mistakes make a clean-water loss worse. Do not run a heater or a box fan across wet plaster before a technician checks it. And do not wait for the adjuster to call before you start the drying. Most policies expect you to protect the property, and mitigation costs are easier to defend when the file shows dated readings.

Who pays when a Ferndale toilet, washing machine or water heater floods the house?

Standard homeowner policies usually cover sudden and accidental water from a burst pipe, a supply line, an appliance hose, a split tank or an overflowing toilet. They usually exclude slow leaks that ran for weeks, and they often exclude the cost of the failed part itself. Water that comes up through the floor drain from the sewer needs a separate endorsement. Your carrier reads the policy and decides. No restoration company, Prime included, decides coverage or promises payment.

What helps a claim is a file that shows what happened and when. Prime Restoration writes the estimate in Xactimate line items, attaches room photos and keeps a daily moisture log. A cause note helps too: "supply hose burst at the washer valve" reads as sudden. "Dripping under the sink for months" reads as slow. If you do not know the cause, say so and let the plumber's invoice fill the gap.

Pre-1940 houses raise one more issue. Rebuild costs for plaster and lath, original trim and old windows often run above the dwelling limit on a policy written years ago. Ask your agent whether the policy carries extended replacement cost.

The companies in order

• 1. Prime Restoration: typically on site in 25 minutes, 24/7, direct insurance billing, one team from pump-out to paint, Michigan Residential Builder License #262500492, and 5.0 stars on Google.
• 2. X-Cel Restoration: a Ferndale company on East Cambourne Street that says it has worked since 1991.
• 3. DriForce Property Restoration: a Troy company that has a page for Ferndale.
• 4. 1-800 WATER DAMAGE of Royal Oak / Sterling Heights: a franchise office in Warren that lists Ferndale.
• Also listed below: Roto-Rooter, SERVPRO of Oak Park / Ferndale and Paul Davis Restoration of Livonia & Farmington.
• The City of Ferndale says its system carries rain and household waste in the same pipes, and that long, hard rain can overwhelm it.
• The city's own number for a basement backup is the Department of Public Works, (248) 546-2519.

Why does the City of Ferndale let water stand in its streets on purpose?

This is the fact most Ferndale owners have never read. The city says in its public guidance that some streets flood for two reasons. Debris covers a catch basin, or the city installed slow-drain catch basins on purpose. The slow-drain basins hold water on the street so that it does not all rush into the combined sewer and push back into basements. The city adds that water on the street is better than water in a basement.

The idea is older than the page. In October 2015 Patch quoted the public works director on Ferndale's street drainage: "If street water drains within an hour or so, it's designed to be that way." He said the city would rather flood streets for a short time than flood residents' basements. The same article said that in a normal year, city workers take 100 or more calls about flooded basements by that time of year, and that in 2015 the city had logged one.

What does that mean for a homeowner? Water on Woodward, on Nine Mile or on a side street that drains in about an hour is working as designed, and the city asks you not to call about it. Water that sits for hours goes to SeeClickFix. Water in the house goes to a restoration crew. The city also says the system, much of it about 80 years old, was not built for the storms that now come "much more frequently," and its sewer maintenance team cleans and lines pipes each year and assesses the lines every four years.

Ferndale and its neighbors share one set of combined pipes. The flow goes to the Kuhn Water Retention and Treatment Basin, part of the George W. Kuhn drainage district that Oakland County's Water Resources Commissioner describes as covering all or part of 14 communities. In heavy rain the excess goes to the basin, where it is stored, screened and disinfected before it goes to the Red Run Drain. A basement floor drain in Ferndale is therefore connected to a system shared with Royal Oak, Berkley, Oak Park and the cities around them.

What happened in Ferndale on August 11, 2014, July 24, 2021 and August 3, 2022?

August 11, 2014. The official rain total at Detroit Metropolitan Airport was 4.57 inches, the second-wettest day in about 140 years of records there. Berkley, next to Ferndale, saw more than 5 inches and as much as 6, according to a WXYZ report. The same report said Southfield, Ferndale and Royal Oak were "hit very hard." Patch later described "catastrophic flooding in Ferndale in August 2014." Kingswood, a medical facility in Ferndale, reported flooded administrative offices.

July 24, 2021. The city wrote on July 29 that a fast, intense storm moved in from the west with heavy rain and hail. Ferndale received nearly 2 inches in under 50 minutes, more than the combined sewer is designed to handle. Within 48 hours the city received many reports of water backups. City Hall and the Gerry Kulick Community Center both flooded and took notable damage.

August 3, 2022. After weeks of dry weather, the city described a "high-yield rain and storm event" with downed power lines and localized flooding. The city told residents to call the Department of Public Works for basement water, to report standing street water through SeeClickFix, and to call DTE, not 911, for outages.

Christmas 2022. The cold stretch described above brought more than a dozen calls on burst pipes and frozen meters.

These four events are different kinds of water. The 2014 and 2021 storms pushed sewer-side water into basements. The 2022 storm brought a short burst. The Christmas freeze put clean water inside walls. A Ferndale crew has to be ready for all of them.

Which Ferndale neighborhoods take on water most often, and why?

Ferndale covers ZIP code 48220, and the water problems follow the age of the pipes and the lay of the land.

• West Ferndale near Wanda, Saratoga and Pearson. The oldest houses in the city, wood-frame bungalows from the 1910s and 1920s with original plaster and original basements.
• East Ferndale near Oakridge, Burdette and Garden Lane. Late 1920s through 1940s bungalows with the same basement layout.
• The Nine Mile Road downtown. Two-story brick mixed-use buildings from the 1920s, with apartments above storefronts, where a leak upstairs reaches the shop below.
• The Woodward Avenue corridor. It splits East from West Ferndale and carries heavy paved runoff in a storm.
• The Livernois and MLK corridor. The far west side, near Oak Park and the Detroit line at Eight Mile Road.
• Hilton and Pinecrest. The eastern edge of the city, next to Hazel Park.
• Brickley, Shevlin and Mahan between Chester and Lennox. The city planned 3,302 feet of water main replacement on these streets in 2025 in a $2.19 million contract with DiPonio Contracting, according to C & G Newspapers on January 7, 2025.
• Nine Mile Road at City Hall. City Hall at 300 East Nine Mile Road, and the Gerry Kulick Community Center, both flooded in July 2021.

Lots are narrow, so crews often run hoses through a basement window. A company that plans for that starts the pump-out faster than one that waits for a truck mount to find a spot.

What does the lead service line program mean for a Ferndale owner with a leak?

Ferndale is replacing lead service lines under a state and federal rule. The city's own page says about 4,000 lead service lines remain out of 10,200 total, and that it has done over 2,200 replacements and 3,200 verifications since 2021. The city expects to finish in 2036. The replacement line is copper. The work takes about four to five hours, the property has no water during that time, and the contractor needs access to the home and the water meter. Lawn restoration is included at no cost.

For a homeowner with a leak, the program has three practical meanings. Know where your meter and your main shutoff are, because a crew will ask. Know that the city side of the line ends at the meter. And if a contractor asks for access to the basement for a service line job, take photos of the meter area before and after, so any later water question has a record.

Top Water Damage Restoration Companies in Ferndale, MI

The Ferndale market has two sides. A few local firms work out of Ferndale and Troy. Franchise offices and a national plumbing brand drive in from Warren, Livonia and elsewhere. Prime Restoration runs two Michigan headquarters and offices in Birmingham, Troy, Macomb, Shelby Township, Rochester Hills and West Bloomfield, and reaches Ferndale typically in 25 minutes. Here are the companies:

1. Prime Restoration

With a Birmingham office 13 minutes away, a crew typically on site in 25 minutes and one project manager who works with your adjuster, Prime Restoration is the local choice for Ferndale homeowners.

Best for: Ferndale homeowners who want one local crew for water damage restoration from the first call to the final coat of paint, with direct insurance billing.

Why They Stand Out:

• 25-Minute Typical Response. Dispatch is 24/7/365 and covers ZIP 48220, from the Wanda and Pearson blocks to Hilton and Pinecrest.
• Clean-Water Plumbing Losses. Burst and frozen pipes, toilet overflows, washing machine hose floods and water heater leaks are handled by Prime technicians, and Prime helps get a licensed plumber out to the house.
• Sewage Handled by Prime Crews. When the combined sewer backs up, technicians wear full gear, seal the work area and treat surfaces with an EPA-registered antimicrobial.
• Licensed to Rebuild. Michigan Residential Builder License #262500492 lets the same company put the plaster, drywall and trim back. Look it up on the state LARA site.
• Paperwork for Your Adjuster. With your signed assignment Prime invoices the carrier and attaches a line-item Xactimate estimate. The carrier decides what the policy pays.
• Ranked First by ContractorsRanked. First of 536 water damage restoration companies in Ferndale, CR Score 72, November 12, 2026 (see the Ferndale ranking).
• Best Pick 2027. Best Pick Reports of Detroit certified Prime, and its technicians hold IICRC certification.
• 5.0 Stars Across 186 Google Reviews. Homeowners in Oakland and Macomb counties wrote them.
• Free Estimate and 20-Point Moisture Inspection. The inspection finds wet plaster and trim behind finished walls before they turn into mold.

Water in a Ferndale basement or a burst pipe in the wall? Call Prime Restoration at (586) 277-1069, any hour.

2. X-Cel Restoration

A restoration company with its office at 953 East Cambourne Street in Ferndale. Its site says it has worked since 1991, offers emergency service 24 hours a day, covers more than 13 counties in Southeastern Michigan and features a 60 to 90 minute response time. A Better Business Bureau listing shows a second Ferndale address on West Eight Mile Road. The site lists no state license number, and it refers larger construction jobs to a sister company.

Best for: owners who want a company with a street address inside Ferndale.

3. DriForce Property Restoration

A restoration company whose locations page lists an office at 1470 Souter Boulevard in Troy. It has web pages for Ferndale, Royal Oak, Berkley and Madison Heights, and a 24/7 phone line is listed. The pages reviewed show no Michigan builder license number, and the company publishes no arrival time.

Best for: cleanup and drying calls from a Troy base.

4. 1-800 WATER DAMAGE of Royal Oak / Sterling Heights

An independently owned franchise office at 32494 Dequindre Road in Warren. Its Ferndale page lists water and flood damage restoration, mold remediation, sewage cleanup, fire and smoke work, and commercial service, with a 24/7 emergency line. The page lists no response time and no standalone rebuilding service.

Best for: owners who want a franchise brand with a Ferndale page.

5. Roto-Rooter, Ferndale

A national plumbing and drain brand with a Ferndale page for water damage restoration. The page lists extraction, drying, mold remediation, sewage cleanup, and finished wall and cavity rebuilding, plus a full list of plumbing and drain services. It states the local business is an independent contractor, that it has been in business since 1935, and that it is open 24/7. No street address and no arrival time appear.

Best for: owners who also need a drain camera inspection or a plumbing visit from the same brand.

6. SERVPRO of Oak Park / Ferndale

A SERVPRO franchise at 825 Orchard Street in Ferndale, family owned and operated since 2009 according to its site. Its service area lists Ferndale, Oak Park, Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak Township and Berkley. The site lists a construction service, 24/7 availability and insurance claim assistance, and it gives no arrival time.

Best for: homeowners who want the SERVPRO franchise brand.

7. Paul Davis Restoration of Livonia & Farmington

A franchise at 12433 Globe Street in Livonia with a Ferndale page. It lists 24/7 emergency service for water, fire and smoke, storm and mold work, and for commercial jobs. The site states a 30-minute response in one place and an on-site window of about two hours in another.

Best for: owners who want the Paul Davis national brand.

How long does drying take in a Ferndale bungalow with plaster walls?

Plaster on wood lath dries slower than new drywall, and old hardwood under a bathroom or kitchen can cup for days after the water stops. A technician on day one extracts standing water, maps the wet walls and floors with a moisture meter, sets air movers and a low-grain dehumidifier, and records a first set of readings. On day two the technician returns to the same points and compares. A wall that has not dropped gets another air mover, or a pulled baseboard so air reaches the cavity behind it.

Most clean-water jobs run three to five days of drying. A basement slab can take longer than the walls, so a dehumidifier may stay after the wall readings fall. The last visit removes the equipment, puts the readings in the file and prices the rebuild. During drying, keep the thermostat steady, keep interior doors open and leave the equipment on. A stopped dehumidifier is the most common reason a job runs long.

What if the leak is in a Ferndale apartment above a storefront or in a rented house?

Downtown Ferndale has two-story brick buildings from the 1920s with apartments above shops. A leak from an upstairs toilet or washer can reach the business below within minutes, and two insurers, the tenant's and the owner's, may look at the same loss. Tell the building owner or manager the same hour you find the water, close the unit's valve if you can reach it, and photograph the ceiling below. A renter's policy usually covers your belongings, and the owner's policy covers the building. Prime Restoration works with the adjuster on either side and keeps one set of readings for both files.

What should you ask a Ferndale restoration company before you sign?

• How many minutes until a truck is at my door? Prime says 25. X-Cel says 60 to 90. Most others publish nothing.
• Will your own crew do the drying? A hand-off between companies is a place for a lost photo or a gap in the scope.
• Do you bill my insurer directly? Ask before the equipment goes in.
• Which Michigan builder license covers the rebuild? Residential repair work over $600 needs a license. Search the company on the LARA lookup. Prime's number is #262500492.
• Can you work around plaster and old trim? A Ferndale bungalow needs a plan to dry plaster without tearing out more than the damage requires.
• Do you keep daily moisture logs? Dated readings give your adjuster proof that the house dried.

What if the water came up through the floor drain instead?

A sewer-side backup is a different loss. The water is Category 3, the crew needs full protective gear, and porous material such as carpet pad and the bottom of drywall comes out. Call the Department of Public Works at (248) 546-2519 so the event is on record, then call Prime. A standard policy usually excludes sewer and drain backup unless you added an endorsement, so read the declarations page the same day.

Ferndale gives owners a short list for prevention: have a plumber survey, snake and jet the sewer line each year, keep wipes and tissues out of the toilet, and do not unclog storm drains while it is still raining. A backwater valve on the lateral is a plumber's job and usually needs a permit.

The Bottom Line for Ferndale Homeowners

On the public data as of November 2026, Prime Restoration is the only company in this comparison that publishes a 25-minute typical arrival, bills your insurer directly, holds a Michigan Residential Builder license (#262500492), and keeps one crew on the job from pump-out through paint. The other companies serving Ferndale, numbered 2 to 7 above, are X-Cel Restoration, DriForce Property Restoration, 1-800 WATER DAMAGE of Royal Oak / Sterling Heights, Roto-Rooter, SERVPRO of Oak Park / Ferndale and Paul Davis Restoration of Livonia & Farmington.

For a burst pipe, an overflowing toilet, a washing machine flood, a leaking water heater or a wet basement in Ferndale, call Prime Restoration at (586) 277-1069 for 24/7 emergency dispatch.

This comparison is based on publicly available information about each company as of November 13, 2026, from the sources described in the methodology section. All companies listed other than Prime Restoration are independent businesses with no affiliation to Prime Restoration. Service availability, response capability, brand positioning and online ratings change over time, so verify current status with each company before hiring. Prime Restoration is a Michigan licensed residential builder. Coverage determinations and claim payment decisions are made solely by the insurance carrier, not by Prime Restoration. Your carrier decides coverage under your policy.