Gwinnett & DeKalb County · 24/7
Water Damage Restoration in Gwinnett County, GA
Extraction, structural drying and repair for burst pipes, appliance failures, storm water and sewage backups. One crew from the first phone call to the final moisture reading, and we bill your insurer directly.
First question we ask: what kind of water is it?
This is the single decision that shapes the whole job — what can be dried, what has to be removed, and whether anyone should be in the room. The industry sorts water into three categories, and they escalate.
Category 1
Clean water
From a supply line, a water heater, an overflowing tub or a burst pipe. No contaminants at the moment it arrives.
Most materials can be dried in place if we reach them early.Category 2
Grey water
Dishwasher and washing-machine discharge, toilet overflow without solids, water that has run through building materials. Carries contamination that can make people ill.
Carpet pad and some porous material comes out; the rest is cleaned and dried.Category 3
Black water
Sewage, rising floodwater, any water that has sat long enough to grow bacteria. Grossly contaminated.
Porous material is removed, not dried. The area works under containment.Categories move in one direction. Clean water left standing for two days is no longer Category 1 — warmth and time turn it. That is why the first hour matters more than the volume of water, and why “we’ll deal with it at the weekend” usually costs more than calling on the night.
Second question: how much of the building got wet?
Category is about what the water is. Class is about how far it went and how hard it will be to get back out — it is what actually sets the equipment count and the number of days.
Class 1
A small part of one room, mostly hard surfaces. Little absorption, fastest to dry.
Class 2
A whole room, carpet and pad wet, water wicked up the wall to around a foot. Standard residential job.
Class 3
Water came from above — ceilings, walls, insulation and subfloor all saturated. Needs the most equipment.
Class 4
Water trapped in materials that release it slowly: hardwood, plaster, concrete, brick. Specialty drying, longest timeline.
What comes on the truck
Drying a building is an equipment problem before it is a labour problem. Triage on the phone decides what we load.
- 1
Truck-mount and portable extractors
Standing water first. Portable units reach upper floors and crawlspaces the truck line cannot.
- 2
Moisture meters
Pin and pinless. They tell us where the water actually went, which is almost never only where you can see it.
- 3
Thermal imaging
Finds cool, wet areas behind drywall and under flooring without opening the wall to look.
- 4
Air movers
Placed at an angle to the wall to lift moisture out of the surface, not just blow air around the room.
- 5
LGR dehumidifiers
Low-grain refrigerant units, which pull water out of air that is already humid. In a Georgia summer this is the part that does the work.
What “dry” actually means
Dry is not a feeling. It is a number, and it is specific to your building.
On day one we take moisture readings from unaffected material of the same type — drywall in a room the water never reached, subfloor two rooms over. That becomes the dry standard: the reading the wet material has to come back down to. Then we log readings from the affected areas every day.
Equipment stays until the numbers meet the standard, not until the floor feels dry to a hand or a scheduled number of days has passed. Those two things are what most people mean by dry, and both of them leave water inside the structure.
You get the log. The daily readings are the evidence your insurer works from, and they are the only honest answer to “how do you know it’s dry?” If a contractor cannot show you readings, they do not know either.
What we can usually save, and what has to go
For clean water reached early. Category 3 changes this list — almost everything porous comes out.
Usually dries in place
- Tile, sealed concrete, vinyl and laminate substrate
- Solid wood framing and studs
- Carpet, if we reach it before delamination
- Painted drywall above the water line
- Solid-wood furniture and cabinetry, dried slowly
- Hardwood, with specialty mats and patience
Usually has to come out
- Carpet pad — it holds water and rarely justifies the drying time
- Wet fibreglass or cellulose insulation
- Drywall below the water line, cut back to a clean edge
- Particleboard and MDF, which swell and do not recover
- Anything porous touched by Category 3 water
- Ceiling tiles
The window before this becomes a mold job
24 to 48 hours
That is the widely used industry window for mold growth on wet organic material — drywall paper, wood, insulation, carpet backing. It is not a countdown clock so much as the point where the job changes character and the cost with it.
Georgia shortens it
Mold needs warmth and humidity, and a Gwinnett summer supplies both. The same spill that would sit harmlessly for two days in a dry climate can be growing here well inside the window.
What that means for you
Calling on the night of a burst pipe is not urgency for its own sake. It is the difference between drying a room and opening walls to remediate a colony behind them.
If it is already growing
Then it is a different job, done under containment with HEPA filtration — see mold remediation & removal. Same crew, same moisture problem, more equipment.
Where we do this work
Nine cities across Gwinnett and DeKalb County, dispatched from Lilburn.
Questions about water damage restoration
How do you know where the water went?
Moisture meters and thermal imaging. A pinless meter reads through the surface, a pin meter confirms depth, and thermal imaging shows the cool wet areas behind drywall. Between them we map the wet area before any equipment is placed — guessing wastes days.
Why is the carpet pad thrown away but the carpet kept?
Pad is a sponge by design; it holds water against the subfloor and rarely justifies the drying time or the risk. The carpet itself is a thinner, less absorbent material and can usually be lifted, dried and re-laid over new pad — provided we reach it before it delaminates.
Can hardwood floors be saved after water damage?
Often, but it is the slowest material in the building and the one most often called dry too early. We use specialty drying mats that pull moisture up through the boards. Rushed hardwood cups, crowns, and has to come up months later.
Do you cut the drywall out?
Only below the water line and only where readings say it is needed — usually a clean cut a set height above the wet edge, so the repair is a straight line rather than a patch. Wet insulation behind it always comes out; it holds moisture no dehumidifier can reach.
What is the difference between water damage restoration and water mitigation?
Mitigation is the emergency half: stopping the spread, extracting, removing unsalvageable material, drying. Restoration is putting the building back — drywall, flooring, paint. We do both, and insurers usually treat them as two parts of one claim.
Do I need a mold test afterwards?
Not if the structure was dried to standard and documented. Testing earns its keep when water sat for days before anyone started, when there is a smell with no visible source, or when a sale or tenancy needs a clearance document.
The first hour is the cheap one.
Describe what you are looking at and we will tell you whether it needs a crew tonight or an inspection tomorrow. The inspection is free either way.