Extraction, structural drying and moisture detection for burst pipes, appliance failures, storm and roof intrusion and sewage backups. Tell us the ZIP code and we route it to a company that works that market.
Photo slot — Truck-mounted water extraction hose running through the front door of a suburban American home, wet hardwood floor, natural light, documentary style, no people's faces. 1200x750
Water damage restoration is the work of getting water out of a building and getting the building dry enough that nothing grows in it afterwards. In practice that is three jobs: remove the standing water, find the moisture that soaked into materials you cannot see, and dry those materials back to a normal moisture content before mold takes hold.
Speed decides everything. Drywall, carpet backing, subfloor and insulation all wick water sideways, so the wet area on day two is larger than the puddle you saw on day one. Under ordinary indoor conditions, mold growth on damp cellulose materials generally begins within 24 to 48 hours. That window is the entire reason restoration companies run emergency dispatch.
SiFixit is a referral service, not the restoration company. We connect you with an independent, licensed local provider. Ask them for their license, certificate of insurance and a written scope before work begins.
The industry classifies losses by contamination level, following the IICRC S500 standard for professional water damage restoration. The category decides what can be dried and kept, what has to be cut out and thrown away, and what protective equipment the crew wears.
| Category | Where it comes from | What usually happens to the materials |
|---|---|---|
| Category 1Clean water | Broken supply lines, tub or sink overflow with no contaminants, appliance feed lines. | Most materials can be dried in place if the response is quick, and carpet is often salvageable. Left wet for days, Category 1 degrades into Category 2. |
| Category 2Grey water | Washing machine and dishwasher discharge, toilet overflow with urine but no solids, aquarium water. | Significant contamination. Carpet pad is normally removed, drywall often cut back, and surfaces are cleaned and treated rather than simply dried. |
| Category 3Black water | Sewage backup, rising surface water and flooding, any water carrying solid waste or standing long enough to grow biological hazards. | Porous materials that absorbed it are removed and disposed of. This is a containment-and-PPE job, not a mop-and-fan job, and it should never be handled DIY. |
Category describes contamination. A separate scale, Class 1 to 4, describes how much water the materials absorbed and how hard the structure will be to dry.
In order. Safety, then documentation, then drying — and documentation before anything is moved, because the adjuster was not standing in your hallway at 2am.
Shut the main valve for a supply-line failure. For roof or storm intrusion, contain it — buckets, tarps, whatever keeps it off the structure.
If water is near outlets or panels, kill the circuits — only if you can reach the breaker without entering the water.
Wide shots of each room, close-ups of the source, serial numbers on damaged appliances, timestamps intact. Narrated video is worth more than you expect.
Call your insurer, record the claim number and who you spoke to. Ask what they need documented before material is removed.
Extraction today beats extraction tomorrow by a wide margin. This is the point where one request saves you six phone calls.
Fans you bought, the hotel if the property is uninhabitable, meals if your policy covers additional living expenses. Claims reimburse what you can evidence.
Pin and pinless meters read moisture content in wood and drywall, and thermal imaging shows the temperature differences that reveal where water travelled inside a wall cavity. The crew marks the wet perimeter, which is almost always wider than the stain.
Truck-mounted or portable extractors pull free water out of carpet, pad and hard surfaces. Removing water as a liquid is many times more efficient than evaporating it later.
Air movers create airflow across wet surfaces to speed evaporation. Dehumidifiers pull that moisture out of the air so it does not resettle somewhere else. Where cavities are wet, crews drill weep holes, remove baseboard or use injection drying rather than tear the wall out.
Readings are taken daily and compared against an unaffected area of the same material. Equipment comes out when the numbers say dry — not when the surface feels dry, and not on a fixed three-day schedule.
Photo slot — drying equipment running on site, 1200×675
A competent crew records daily moisture readings per room and per material. Ask for that log at handover. It is your evidence that the structure was dried to standard, and it is what an insurer or a future buyer will want to see.
Confusing the two is the most common reason people believe they were overcharged.
Most policies turn on one distinction: sudden and accidental versus gradual and preventable. This is general information, not a coverage opinion on your policy.
Most policies place a duty on you to mitigate — to take reasonable steps to stop the damage getting worse. Acting quickly is not going against your insurer. Leaving a property wet for a week waiting on an adjuster can create its own coverage argument.
Be careful with assignment-of-benefits paperwork. Signing it hands your claim rights to the contractor. It is legitimate and common in some states and restricted in others, but read it rather than initialling it on a clipboard at midnight.
STATE-BY-STATE AOB RULES: VERIFY BEFORE PUBLISHING
No two water losses price the same. These are the variables that actually decide your invoice.
Clean water can often be dried in place. Sewage means removal, disposal and containment, and that is a different order of cost.
Not the size of the puddle — the size of the wet area, including what wicked under the wall into the next room.
Tile over concrete dries cheaply. Hardwood, engineered floors, plaster and wet insulation are slower and often unsalvageable.
Mitigation is commonly billed per unit per day. A structure that takes five days to dry costs more than one that takes two.
A second-floor bathroom over a finished ceiling costs more to dry than a slab-on-grade laundry, because the crew has to open and then rebuild more.
Packing out, storing and cleaning furniture and belongings is a separate scope from drying the structure.
Cost figures circulate widely online and most are unsourced. Rather than repeat a number we cannot stand behind, this page publishes the cost drivers and leaves the range to be filled in from a citable industry source. INSERT SOURCED RANGE + PUBLICATION DATE BEFORE LAUNCH
If materials stayed wet past about two days, remediation usually follows drying. Mold removal and remediation →
Category 3 water overlaps with biohazard work and is handled under the same containment rules. Biohazard and trauma cleanup →
These are the questions typed into search boxes and AI assistants, answered directly rather than buried three paragraphs down. Each answer leads with the answer.
Call both, but get a restoration company moving first. Most policies place a duty on you to prevent further damage, so starting emergency water extraction is not working against your insurer — it is what the policy expects. Open the claim the same day and write down the claim number.
There is no single figure, because water damage repair is priced on the wet perimeter, the water category, the materials involved and the number of equipment days. A clean-water spill dried in two days sits at one end; a sewage loss needing removal and disposal sits far at the other. INSERT SOURCED COST RANGE BEFORE PUBLISHING
Usually yes when it is sudden and accidental, usually no when it is gradual. A supply line that bursts is commonly covered. A slow leak under a sink that went unaddressed for months commonly is not, and surface flooding generally needs separate flood cover through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood policy.
Water mitigation stops the loss getting worse; water damage repair puts the property back. Mitigation covers emergency water extraction, structural drying and removing unsalvageable material, and is usually billed per piece of equipment per day. Repair covers drywall, flooring and paint, and is normally a separate estimate and a separate approval on the claim.
Moisture stays inside the assembly and mold follows, usually within 24 to 48 hours. A surface that feels dry tells you nothing about the moisture content of the subfloor, the bottom plate or the insulation behind the drywall. This is why crews monitor to a dry standard rather than to a fixed number of days.
A small clean-water spill, yes. Anything that soaked structure, no. Household fans move air across a surface but do not pull moisture out of framing or subfloor, and a domestic vacuum is not built for water. Any water that touched sewage or came in from outside is Category 3 and should not be handled without containment and protective equipment.
Start with the ZIP code, not the city. Enter it on the request form and it routes to a restoration company already working that market, including 24 hour flood cleanup where the provider offers it. One request replaces ringing six companies from a search page.
Every request on this site is routed by postal code, because that is how restoration markets actually work.
Restoration pricing, licensing and response all work at market level, so the first thing any provider asks is the ZIP code. That is why water damage restoration requests here start with a ZIP rather than a city name — one postal code sits inside exactly one market, while a city name can straddle several.
Searches such as water damage restoration near me, emergency water extraction near me, 24 hour flood cleanup near me all resolve the same way: the ZIP decides which local company receives the request. If your ZIP sits outside current coverage, the form will say so rather than pass your details on.
PER-MARKET ZIP LISTS: INSERT VERIFIED RANGES BEFORE PUBLISHING
Enter the property ZIP on the request form and it routes automatically. Free, and no obligation to hire.
Start With My ZIP CodeEmergencies are routed ahead of inspections and quotes.
Restoration estimates use a vocabulary most property owners meet once in their lives. Knowing these makes the scope readable and the invoice checkable.