Water is coming into my house. What do I do first?
Stop the water, make the area safe, then document it before anything gets moved or thrown out. Those three come before calling anyone, including us, and they take about ten minutes. What you do in the first hour decides how much of the house is still repairable and how much of the claim gets paid.
Stop the water
For a burst pipe or an overflowing fixture, shut the main off. Most houses in this area have it where the supply enters, often in the basement on the street side, or at the meter. Find it now rather than during the emergency, and label it.
For a roof leak in a storm there is nothing to shut off, so the job is containment. Move what you can out from under it and catch what you can.
Make it safe
Do not walk into standing water in a room with live outlets, a submerged appliance or a panel at floor level. If the water has reached anything electrical and you cannot kill the circuit from a dry position, call the utility or an electrician instead of wading in.
Water that came from a sewer line or a toilet backup is contaminated and needs different handling from a clean supply line break. Keep people out of it rather than mopping it up yourself.
Photograph it before you clean
Wide shots of each affected room, then close ups of the damage, then the source if you can see it. Get the water line on the wall, the flooring, the contents, and anything with a serial number.
This is the single most valuable ten minutes in the whole process. Once the drying starts the evidence disappears, and an adjuster who arrives four days later is looking at a dry room. Do not throw damaged items out until they have been photographed and the adjuster has told you it is fine.
Then start drying
Water keeps moving after the source is off. It travels along the underside of subfloors and up the back of drywall, and the damage tomorrow is bigger than the damage today.
Extraction and controlled drying are the point of the first day. That means pulling standing water, opening up what is trapping moisture, and running air movers and dehumidification until the structure reads dry on a meter rather than dry to the touch.
When to call us
As soon as the water is stopped and you are out of danger. We handle the extraction and drying and the rebuild afterwards, so the same company that opened the wall is the one that closes it.
Emergency response is within 24 to 48 hours. Have the address, what the source was, which rooms are affected and whether anything is still wet when you call.
Still Want Someone to Look at It?
Send photos and a description and you get a written price with the scope spelled out. Open every day, 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Emergency response in 24–48 hours for urgent property damage.