Water Damage Cleanup & Restoration

Water doesn't sit still. Within minutes, it wicks into drywall, hardwood, subfloor, insulation, and framing. Within 24 hours, mold spores begin colonizing damp surfaces. Within 72 hours, you're no longer dealing with water damage — you're dealing with structural and biohazard remediation, at 5x the cost.

CPR's water mitigation crews are IICRC certified in Water Damage Restoration (WRT) and Applied Structural Drying (ASD). We arrive with truck-mounted extractors, industrial air movers, refrigerant and desiccant dehumidifiers, antimicrobial treatments, and the moisture-mapping equipment to verify when the structure is actually dry — not just dry to the touch.

Three categories of water damage — different protocols for each

• Category 1 — Clean water: Burst supply pipes, overflowing sinks, ice maker leaks. No contaminants. Standard extraction and drying.
• Category 2 — Gray water: Dishwasher overflow, washing machine discharge, hydrostatic groundwater. Some contamination. Requires antimicrobial treatment.
• Category 3 — Black water: Sewage backups, toilet overflow with feces, flooding from rivers or storms. Highly contaminated. Requires PPE, full demo of porous materials, and disinfection.

Mis-categorizing the water — treating Cat 2 like Cat 1, or Cat 3 like Cat 2 — is one of the most common mistakes non-certified contractors make. The result: drying that doesn't sanitize, mold growth, and contamination of clean areas. We classify on-site using moisture readings, source identification, and contamination indicators.

What our water damage cleanup includes

• Emergency extraction — truck-mounted extractors, submersible pumps, weighted extractors for carpet
• Source identification & shutoff — finding and stopping the leak before mitigation begins
• Content & contents removal — anything porous and damaged is documented and removed for storage or disposal
• Structural drying — industrial air movers and dehumidifiers, sized per the IICRC S500 standard
• Moisture mapping — daily readings logged for every affected material until verified dry
• Antimicrobial application — EPA-registered treatments for Cat 2 and Cat 3 water
• Mold prevention or remediation — if mold is present or likely, full containment and removal protocol
• Rebuild & reconstruction — drywall, flooring, baseboards, paint — same team finishes what mitigation started

Why drying is more than just running fans

Anyone can rent an air mover from a hardware store. What separates IICRC-certified drying from improvised drying is the math. Each affected room is calculated for grain depression (the difference between moisture in the air and what materials can release), and the equipment is sized accordingly. Too few dehumidifiers and the room stays wet. Too few air movers and evaporation stalls. Wrong placement and you create dead zones where mold takes hold.

We log moisture readings daily — drywall, subfloor, framing, content — and adjust the drying plan in real time. Most projects reach the IICRC dry standard in 3–5 days. We don't pull the equipment until the readings prove it.

Typical water damage timeline