Discovering water damage in your home is stressful, especially when it comes out of nowhere: a burst supply line, an overflowing washing machine, or water coming in through a roof after an overnight storm. With wetter weather arriving across the Wasatch Front this week, it's a good time to have a plan ready before you need it.
The good news: the first 24 hours are squarely in your control. Here's exactly what to do, in order.
The First 15 Minutes: Stop the Water and Stay Safe
Your first priority is always safety, not cleanup. Before you wade in, pause:
- Turn off electricity to any affected rooms at the breaker panel — water and electricity are a dangerous combination. Only do this from a dry location.
- Shut off the water source. For a burst pipe or failed appliance, locate the shutoff valve for that fixture, or close the main supply valve to the whole house. Know where your main shutoff is before you ever need it.
- Avoid contact with standing water that looks discolored, smells foul, or may have come from an outdoor flood or a sewer backup. That water can carry contaminants and should be handled by professionals.
- Stay out of rooms with sagging ceilings — waterlogged ceiling material can collapse unexpectedly.
Hour 0–1: Document Before You Touch Anything
Once the area is safe to enter, photograph and video everything before you move a single item. Walk the affected space with your phone on video and narrate what you see — the source, the spread, the affected walls, floors, and belongings. Photograph every affected surface from multiple angles, including visible water lines on walls. This documentation is what your insurance claim will be built on, and you can't recreate it after cleanup begins.
Hour 1–2: Call Your Restoration Company and Your Insurer
These two calls happen early and ideally at the same time. A qualified restoration team needs to assess the damage while it's fresh. When you call your insurer, have your policy number ready, note the date and cause of the damage, ask what's covered and what isn't, and clarify whether an adjuster needs to visit before work begins — most insurers allow mitigation to start immediately to prevent further damage.
Hours 1–6: Protect What You Can While You Wait
While you wait for a restoration crew to arrive, there are safe, helpful steps you can take:
- Move electronics, documents, photographs, and irreplaceable items to a dry area right away — these often can't be restored once water-damaged.
- Move furniture and rugs off wet flooring to prevent staining and additional absorption. Place aluminum foil or small plastic bags under furniture legs on wet carpet as a short-term measure.
- If the water is clean (from a tap, supply line, or appliance), use a wet/dry vacuum, mops, or towels to start removing standing water from hard surfaces.
- Run fans to increase air circulation, but understand that fans alone can't dry out walls, subfloors, or insulation — industrial drying equipment is needed for that.
- In Utah's fall climate, opening windows can help if outdoor humidity is genuinely lower than indoors. Use your judgment based on conditions outside.
What Not to Do
A few common mistakes make water damage significantly worse:
- Don't assume the floor looks dry means it is dry — moisture hides inside drywall, insulation, and subfloor long after the surface looks fine.
- Don't paint over wet drywall, patch walls, or replace flooring until moisture readings confirm everything is dry. Trapping moisture inside building materials leads directly to mold.
- Don't use a regular household vacuum to remove standing water.
Why Speed Matters So Much
Water damage is uniquely time-sensitive. Clean water from a supply line begins turning contaminated within about 48 hours as it picks up bacteria from building materials. Mold can begin developing within 24 to 48 hours of water exposure. The decisions and actions taken in the first day genuinely determine whether you face a manageable restoration project or a much more extensive and expensive one.
The Disaster Repair Team is available 24/7 for water damage emergencies across Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Utah, and Tooele counties. If you're dealing with a leak right now — or just want to know what you're looking at — don't hesitate to reach out. We're here to help you get things back to normal as quickly and smoothly as possible.