From damage to rebuild in Campbell's older houses

Where this page comes from

Three Campbell jobs, August to October 2025

The first of our Campbell jobs was in August 2025 and the third in October 2025. Between them, our crews took 256 photos, because every job we do is photographed before, during and after the work, for the owner and for the insurer.

Our job log does not say which kind of work each of those three was, so we will not guess here. The work we take on is the same across the Bay Area: water mitigation, mold remediation, fire and smoke cleanup, air duct cleaning, the reconstruction once the damage is handled, and construction and remodeling as a project of its own.

No owner of a Campbell job has cleared photos for the website yet, which is why you see Reme at the top instead of a real room. If you want to see how one job looks from the first reading to the finished floor, the published hardwood floor job shows every stage.

Housing age

Seven in ten Campbell homes are older than 1980

The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey counts 18,238 homes in Campbell and puts their median year built at 1972. About 12,500 of them, or 69 %, went up before 1980, and the 1970s alone account for 4,099 (Census table B25034).

Only about 1,300 homes, around 7 %, are from 2010 or later. At the other end, 595 were built in 1939 or earlier. So the typical Campbell house that calls us has generations of owners behind it.

The historic list

What if the house is on Campbell's Historic Resource Inventory?

Campbell keeps a Historic Resource Inventory, first adopted by the City Council on August 7, 1984. According to the city's historic preservation questions page, a listed home is protected by the Historic Preservation Ordinance and is otherwise treated like any other home in the city.

• Inside the house, the usual rules

  The city says changes to the interior of a historic home have the same requirements as a non-historic one. Drying out a flooded kitchen or rebuilding a smoke-damaged bedroom runs the way it would anywhere else in town.

• Outside, the city has a say

  Work that modifies the exterior of a listed home generally falls under one of two levels of city approval. Routine maintenance, such as replacing a roof or a window with equivalent materials, follows the same requirements as a non-historic home.

• Adding on

  A listed home can be made larger if the addition meets the city's residential development standards and fits Campbell's historic design guidelines and the state's preservation guidelines.

• Two things owners ask about

  The city points to the California Historic Building Code, which offers alternative rules for preserving historic buildings, and to its Mills Act program, through which owners may qualify for lower property taxes. If you know your house is listed, say so on the first call and we plan any exterior work around it.

How Campbell lives

Fourplexes, townhouses and an even split of owners and renters

Detached houses are only 43 % of Campbell's homes. Another 13 % are attached single-family homes such as townhouses, 15 % are in small buildings of three or four units, and 13 % are in buildings of 50 units or more (Census table B25024). Of the 16,923 occupied homes, 52 % are lived in by their owners and 48 % are rented (table B25003).

A 2024 rule

Big rebuilds and Campbell's Zero NOx ordinance

In September 2024 Campbell adopted a Zero NOx ordinance. The city's Building Division page says it prohibits NOx emissions from certain appliances in new residential and commercial buildings and in substantial rebuilds, with limited exemptions.

For a homeowner after a fire or a major flood, the question is whether the rebuild is large enough to count. A room repaired after a burst pipe is not a new building. A house rebuilt down to the frame may be. The city's Electrify Your Home page adds that Campbell does not regulate existing buildings, so the ordinance does not make you replace gas appliances that are already there, and that electrification projects in a home need a permit.

The same page notes the regional rules coming: under the Bay Area Air District, gas water heaters can no longer be sold or installed from 2027, and gas furnaces in homes must be replaced with electric zero-emission systems from 2029. When a rebuild opens the walls anyway, it is a sensible moment to plan the wiring for that. Whether your project falls under the ordinance is the Building Division's call; we ask them before the plans are drawn.

The wet season

Thirteen and a half inches of rain, most of it in three months

The nearest NOAA climate normals station, at San Jose's airport, averages 13.48 inches of rain a year for 1991–2020 (NOAA NCEI climate normals). December, January and February bring 7.78 inches of that, and November through March about 83 % of the year.

June to September averages three tenths of an inch in total, and July none at all. A roof, a gutter or a window flashing can go half a year without being tested, then take several inches in a few weeks. That is often when a stain appears on a ceiling. If storm water came in through the roof, siding or gutters, storm damage repair covers the drying and the repair, documented for the claim.

Your lot on the map

Two creeks, the flood map and the ground under the house

The city's general plan update, Envision Campbell, lists Los Gatos Creek and San Tomas Aquino Creek as the waterways in its planning area. Whether a given lot sits in a mapped flood zone is shown on FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, which is the official map for flood insurance.

For the ground, the California Geological Survey's EQ Zapp shows whether an address falls in a state liquefaction or landslide zone. Neither map changes how we dry a house. They matter when a rebuild reaches the foundation or adds space, because that is when an engineer and the permit office look at the ground and the flood zone together.

City hall

How a Campbell building permit is applied for

The Building Division, part of the Community Development Department, approves plans and issues permits for all construction in Campbell, and its page states it plainly: you must have a building permit to do construction.

• Everything goes online

  Applications are made through the city's MGO Connect portal, where the plans and documents are uploaded, the status is followed and inspections are scheduled.

• Guides by type of work

  The city publishes a separate application guide for each kind of job, from interior remodels of kitchens and bathrooms to window replacement, foundation repair and garage conversions. Additions follow the guide for new construction.

• Drying first, permits for the rebuild

  Removing water and wet material comes first and cannot wait. Rebuilding walls, cabinets and floors afterwards is construction, so it is planned with the permit in mind.

• Who does the paperwork

  On remodels we handle the permits and plans, and design is included. A rebuild after damage with the same scope goes the same way. If a smaller repair might not need a permit, we ask the Building Division rather than assume.

Before you call

Five things that make a Campbell call faster

1. Where the water or smoke started

   The room, and whether it is still coming. If water is still running, shut the supply if you can do it safely.

2. The year the house was built

   Even a guess helps. In Campbell it is most often before 1980.

3. Whether it is on the historic list

   Only if you know. It changes nothing inside, and it shapes the exterior work.

4. Who else shares the building

   A neighbor in the next unit, a landlord or an association, so the right people see the record.

5. Your insurer, if you have filed

   We write an itemized estimate in Xactimate for your adjuster. We are the repair contractor, never the adjuster; for the covered repair you pay only your deductible, and the insurer pays us the rest directly.

Where each part of the work is explained

• Water damage mitigationReadings, water out, drying by the numbers.
• Fire damage restorationSoot and smoke cleanup through the rebuilt room.
• Rebuild after damageWalls, floors and kitchens put back.
• Working with insuranceThe estimate, the photos and the deductible.
• Construction & remodelingRemodels, additions and ADUs.

Questions

Campbell questions, answered here