Gwinnett & DeKalb County
Residential Water Damage Restoration
For homeowners and renters: what happens when the water is in your own house, how the job runs while you are living in it, and what the process looks like from the first phone call to the last reading.
What actually causes most household water damage
Very little of it is dramatic. The great majority of the calls we take start with a small part that costs under fifty dollars and had been quietly ageing for years.
Washing machine hoses
A braided supply hose under constant mains pressure, usually behind a machine nobody moves. When it goes it does not drip — it runs at full pressure until someone shuts the valve, often for hours.
Water heaters
Tanks corrode from the inside and fail without warning, and in many houses here they sit inside the conditioned space or in a closet rather than in a garage. Age is the only real predictor.
Toilet supply lines and angle stops
Plastic supply nuts and old shut-off valves. A slow weep behind a toilet gets into the subfloor and the wall behind it long before anything appears on the surface.
Dishwashers and fridge ice-makers
Both leak underneath cabinetry where nothing is visible. Ice-maker lines in particular run through a wall or floor and fail out of sight.
HVAC condensate
A blocked condensate drain overflows the pan, which in an attic air handler means water coming down through a ceiling. Extremely common through a Georgia summer.
Roof and window leaks
Rarely a hole. Usually flashing, a ridge vent or a failed seal that only leaks in wind-driven rain, which is why it seems to come and go.
How a house dry-out runs while you are living in it
Most people stay in the house. It is worth knowing in advance what that is actually like.
- 1
Inspection and readings
We map the wet area with meters and a thermal camera across the whole floor plate, not just the room with the puddle. You get a written scope before anything is moved. Free, and with no obligation.
- 2
Extraction
Standing water pulled out, saturated carpet pad and anything unsalvageable removed. This is the first hours, and it is the part that limits how far the water gets to travel. See emergency water extraction.
- 3
Equipment in, and living around it
Air movers and dehumidifiers placed to a drying plan. They run continuously, including overnight, and they are loud. Affected rooms are usually unusable for a few days; the rest of the house is normally fine.
- 4
Daily readings until dry standard
Someone comes back each day, takes readings and adjusts the equipment. The building decides when it is finished, not the calendar. Typically three to five days for a straightforward job.
- 5
Repair and reinstatement
Drywall, flooring, paint and finishes, once the readings say the structure is dry. Closing a wet wall is how mold jobs are created, so this waits.
The parts of a house people forget to check
After the visible mess is dealt with, these are where an unnoticed loss reappears weeks later as a stain or a smell.
Under the bottom of the wall
Water wicks up into the bottom plate and the first few inches of drywall. It is invisible from the room and it is the most commonly missed wet material in a house.
The subfloor, not the floor
Laminate and vinyl look fine while the subfloor beneath them holds water. A floor that feels dry is a statement about the top surface only.
The crawlspace
Water that went around the house rather than through it ends up under the floor and stays. The rooms above read dry while joists and insulation hold moisture for weeks.
Attic insulation
Wet insulation holds water against the ceiling below and dries very slowly. A ceiling stain three weeks after a storm nearly always started here.
Apartments, condos and townhomes
Attached housing is a different job from a detached house, and much of our Duluth and Peachtree Corners work is exactly this.
Water does not respect the property line. A failure on an upper floor tracks along joist bays and appears in a neighbouring unit, often one nobody has thought to check. The first task is establishing how far it has already gone, before any equipment is placed.
More than one party has a say. An HOA or management company, your insurer and possibly a neighbour’s insurer are all involved. Who authorises the work and who pays for the shared structure are separate questions, and the building stays wet while they are argued about.
What helps most: photograph everything before it is moved, notify the management company the same day, and get the loss documented with readings early. That record is usually what settles the question later, and it cannot be reconstructed a week afterwards.
Services this may involve
Most household losses need two or three of these in sequence — see all services.
Questions from homeowners
Do we have to move out?
Usually not. For a clean-water loss in one or two rooms most families stay, with the affected rooms out of use for a few days and equipment running overnight. Sewage or floodwater is a different conversation because that water is contaminated, and we will say plainly what we think when we see it.
Will you have to pull up my floor?
Only if the readings say it cannot be dried. Removing material bills more than drying it, which is exactly why you should expect to be shown the readings rather than told. Hardwood and engineered floors are often worth attempting to save, depending on how long they were wet and what is underneath.
My renter’s policy — does that cover this?
Renter policies generally cover your belongings rather than the building, and the building is the landlord’s side. We are not insurance advisers, so check with your carrier and your landlord. What we can do is document the loss and inventory the contents, which both sides will need.
How much of the house will be affected?
Almost always more than it looks, and less than people fear. Water spreads under flooring and into wall bases, so the wet area is wider than the visible one, but a lot of what is wet can be dried in place rather than replaced. The meter survey is what turns that from a guess into a number.
Is the inspection free?
Yes, including the moisture readings and a written scope, with no obligation. If a fan and a dry weekend will handle it, that is what we will tell you.
Water in the house?
Tell us where it came from and how long it has been there. Those two answers decide almost everything about what happens next.