What we do, in order
Stop it spreading. Standing water is extracted first, from the furthest edge of the wet area back, so the wet perimeter stops growing as we work. Carpet water extraction is a volume job before it is anything else: every gallon that comes up through the head is a gallon the equipment does not have to evaporate later.
Find the real edge. The visible dark patch is smaller than the wet area, because water wicks along the backing faster than it shows on the surface. Finding the true boundary is what separates drying the room from drying part of it.
Lift and assess the padding. Extraction takes what the pile is holding; the padding underneath holds far more and gives it up far more slowly. We lift a corner and look. Sometimes it dries in place. Where it is beyond saving it is pulled and taken out of the house before drying starts, because a wet pad under a dry carpet is where the smell comes from.
Take the readings before the equipment goes down. A moisture reading is worth only what it is compared against, so a dry standard is taken from an unaffected part of the same house, and the wet readings are repeated across the area rather than taken once in the worst spot. One wet pocket should not set the target for a floor, and one dry corner should not end the job.
Dry, and keep drying. Air movers and dehumidifiers work as a pair and neither does the job alone. The air mover lifts moisture off the carpet, the padding and the subfloor into the room air; the dehumidifier takes it out of the house instead of moving it to the next room. A space that is a little warm dries faster than a cold one, because warmer air carries more moisture off the material. This runs for days rather than hours.
What can be saved, by the water that came in
The industry works to one standard for this, ANSI/IICRC S500, and what it sorts water by is how contaminated it is rather than how much of it there is. Three categories, and they are worth knowing before anyone quotes you a job.
Clean water, Category 1. A supply line, a water heater, an ice maker line, a burst pipe: water that arrived from a sanitary source and has picked nothing up on the way. Reached inside the first day or two, carpet and padding are usually dried in place together, with the subfloor under them.
Water that has picked something up, Category 2. Washing machine and dishwasher discharge, a toilet overflow with no solids, rain or groundwater that has run across the ground before it came in. The standard describes this as significantly contaminated and expects the padding to come out, because the padding is the layer that holds whatever the water carried against the subfloor. The carpet is assessed rather than assumed.
Grossly contaminated water, Category 3. Sewage, backflow from beyond a trap, river or stream water, water that rose from outside. Carpet and padding that took it come out. That is a health decision rather than a cleaning one, and the work belongs to a company set up for contaminated water.
Two things complicate the list. Storm water is not automatically the worst case; what matters is what it ran across on the way in. And water gets worse with time and warmth, so the case a floor is in on day one is not the case it is in on day four.
Which case a floor is in is determined at the floor, after we have seen where the water came from and how long it has been sitting. We tell you before the work begins, for the same reason we tell you which stains will not come out.
Dry to the touch is not dry
Carpet three days after a leak often feels dry underfoot. The surface fibers give up their moisture first and they are the only part of the floor a hand can reach. Underneath, the padding and the top layer of the subfloor can still be holding a great deal of water.
Padding behaves like a sponge with a lid on it. It holds the water and it holds it against the subfloor, where there is no airflow to carry it away. Those layers are enclosed, warm and dark, which is the set of conditions mold needs, and the EPA puts the window at 24 to 48 hours: dry the materials inside it and in most cases mold does not start.
That is where the familiar sequence comes from. A leak that seemed handled, a room that seemed fine, and a smell three weeks later that will not clear. The smell means the moisture never left.
So the end of a drying job is decided with a moisture meter on the padding and the subfloor rather than with a hand on the carpet. The readings are compared against a dry part of the same house and repeated until they hold steady. That sometimes means leaving the equipment running for another day after the room already looks finished.
How long it takes
Extraction takes a few hours, and how many depends on the volume of water standing on the floor and held in the materials under it. The air movers and the dehumidifier then run for several days rather than for an afternoon.
Three things move that: how much water there was, what it soaked into, and how warm the space is. A single wet bedroom caught the same day is a small job. A basement where the water went up the drywall and into the subfloor is a large one, and plaster, concrete and masonry are the slowest materials of all to give water back.
Warmth helps, within reason, because warmer air carries more moisture away from the material. It is part of why a cold basement in February takes longer than the same room in July.
We run the equipment a day longer instead of calling a floor dry early, and we do not put a number of days on a floor nobody has looked at yet. The meter ends the job, and the meter reads what the materials are still holding.
What it costs and how the estimate works
Prices are quoted per job after we have seen the floor, which is why there is no price list on this site. A water job carries too many variables to price down a phone line: the number of wet rooms, the volume of water, what it soaked into and how long the equipment has to run.
The estimate is written down before any work starts, and the number in it is for the property described. It does not change at the door.
What moves that number on a water job is how many rooms are wet, whether the padding has to come out, and how many days the air movers and the dehumidifier stay in the house.
If it is easier than a call, send the form with a photograph of the wet area and a written estimate comes back the same day, with no obligation. And where a floor should be replaced rather than dried, we say so before the estimate is written at all.
Photographs and paperwork for an insurance claim
Every job is photographed and every estimate is in writing. Those are the two things an adjuster asks for first.
The rest is yours, and most of it happens before we arrive. Photograph or take video of the damage before anything is moved, including whatever you plan to throw out. Keep a list of what was wet and keep the receipts for what you spend. Call your agent or your insurer as soon as you can. Where it is possible, hold on to the damaged items until the adjuster has seen them.
The part that catches people out is the cover itself. A homeowners policy does not cover flood damage, and flood cover is a separate policy, according to the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance. A burst pipe upstairs and water rising into a basement from outside are two different questions, so ask your agent which policy answers which.
We handle drying and cleaning rather than insurance claims. What we can give you is the drying work, the photographs of it and the written estimate.
What we do not do, and who to call instead
Mold that is already growing is a job for a mold remediation company, which is where the water standard itself sends it, to ANSI/IICRC S520. The EPA puts the line for handling it yourself at about 10 square feet, roughly a three foot by three foot patch, and does not recommend bleach as routine cleanup. Whichever route is taken, the water has to be fixed first or the mold returns.
Rebuilding is a contractor's work. We dry the structure and the materials in it. Drywall, subfloor, trim and cabinetry that have to be replaced are replaced by somebody else, and knowing that before the drying starts is usually worth more than hearing it afterwards.
Sewage and other Category 3 water goes to a restoration company set up for contaminated water. Carpet and padding that took it are removed rather than dried, and that is a health decision.
The leak itself belongs to a plumber. We stop the water spreading through the floor and dry what is wet; the pipe or the appliance that let it go is a separate repair.
All of this is said at the door rather than at the end, before a drying bill turns into a replacement bill.
Call as soon as the water has stopped, at any hour; what to have ready when you call is listed higher up the page.
