Restoration in Berkshire County

Local conditions

What we deal with in Berkshire County

Berkshire County is a cold inland upland in western Massachusetts, and that inverts the loss pattern the rest of this company is built around: Pittsfield averages 22°F in January and roughly 150 days a year drop below freezing, so frozen and burst pipes rather than surge are what fills the winter schedule. Three in four homes here predate 1980 and the county median was built in 1956 — in North Adams and Adams it is 1938 — so a tear-out runs into asbestos and lead in the materials before it runs into drying. One home in eight is seasonal or only occasionally occupied, the highest share in Massachusetts outside the Cape and the Islands, so when the heat fails in a closed-up house the plumbing is what goes first, and a pipe that let go in January is routinely found by a caretaker or a neighbour days later rather than by the owner. The Housatonic runs south through Pittsfield and Lee, its West Branch leaving Onota Lake on the Pittsfield side, while the Hoosic runs north through Adams and Williamstown, and both corridors jam with ice in a January thaw.

• Frozen and burst pipes during arctic outbreaks
• Unoccupied seasonal homes where a winter failure runs undiscovered
• Ice damming and snow load on poorly vented roofs
• Housatonic and Hoosic river flooding, including January ice jams
• Spring thaw seepage and mold growth in cellars of pre-1940 housing
• Septic saturation outside the sewered towns