What to do in the first hour of a water leak
Shut off the water at the main. If the water is anywhere near outlets, a panel or hardwired equipment, kill the power to that area at the breaker before you walk in it. Then photograph everything before you move anything, and start moving air. The first hour decides most of what this ends up costing.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time
- The first 60 minutes
- Parts cost
- $0 — this is triage, not repair
- Trade
- Restoration
What you need
- Phone camera
- Towels
- Fans
- Foil or wood blocks to lift furniture legs
Step by step
- 01
Water off at the main
Not the fixture — the main. If you do not already know where your main shut-off is, that is the single most useful five minutes you will ever spend in your house.
- 02
Power off if water is near anything electrical
Outlets, a panel, a water heater, hardwired appliances. Kill that circuit or the main breaker from a dry position. If the panel itself is wet, do not touch it — call the utility.
- 03
Photograph everything before you move it
Wide shots of each room, then close-ups of the source and the damage, then the water line on walls and furniture. This is the record your insurer will want and it is impossible to recreate once you start cleaning.
- 04
Get standing water out and air moving
Towels, a wet vacuum if you have one, mop. Open interior doors and closets, pull back area rugs, and lift furniture legs onto foil or blocks so they do not stain the floor and wick water upward.
- 05
Call before the 48-hour clock runs out
Mould begins in roughly forty-eight hours. Household fans move air but do not remove water from it, so moisture migrates into the framing rather than leaving the building. Proper drying needs commercial air movers, dehumidification and a meter to prove the structure is actually dry rather than dry on the surface.
Stop and call somebody if…
- The water is or might be sewage — that is Category 3 and genuinely hazardous, not a mop job
- It came through the ceiling, which means it has already been in the structure
- You cannot find the source, or it is still coming in after the main is off
- Anything electrical got wet
- It has been more than 24 hours
Rebuilding over material that is not fully dry is the single most common way a water claim becomes a mould claim six months later. That is why we meter it rather than eyeball it.
More guides
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Why does my toilet keep running and how do I fix it?
Easy · 30–60 minutesHow to unclog a drain without chemicals
How do I unclog a slow drain without using drain cleaner?
Got halfway and had enough?
No judgement — half of what we do is finishing jobs somebody else started. Call either office.