1. Stop the water
Everything else is secondary. Every minute the supply is open adds water to a building that is already wicking it upward through drywall.
Your main shut-off is usually in one of four places: at the street in a concrete box, on the side of the house near an outdoor tap, in the garage, or in a basement utility area. Turn it clockwise until it stops. If it's a lever, a quarter turn is enough.
Find it before you need it. Go and look now, while nothing is wrong. People lose ten or fifteen minutes hunting for a valve in the dark, and ten minutes of an open half-inch line is roughly a hundred gallons.
2. Cut the power — but only if you can reach it dry
Water and electricity in the same room is the one part of this that can kill you. Switch off the breakers feeding the affected rooms.
Do not wade through standing water to reach a panel. If the panel is in the wet area, or the water is anywhere near outlets at floor level, leave it and tell us on the phone. We'll bring it up with the utility if it needs isolating at the meter.
3. Photograph everything before you move it
This is the cheapest thing you will do all week. Adjusters decide claims on evidence, and the evidence of what the room looked like at its worst disappears the moment you start tidying.
- Wide shots of each affected room from the doorway, before anything moves.
- Close-ups of the source — the split pipe, the failed hose, the overflowing pan.
- Anything damaged, individually. Furniture, electronics, boxes, documents.
- A shot showing the water line on the wall or cabinet base, if there is one.
- Video walking through, narrating what you're seeing. Thirty seconds is plenty.
4. Lift things, don't mop
A mop and bucket will not meaningfully reduce the water and will cost you the time that matters. Spend the effort on getting things up out of it instead.
- Lift rugs and take them outside — a wet rug on wet hardwood stains both.
- Get furniture legs onto blocks, tin foil, or anything that breaks contact.
- Move cardboard boxes immediately. Cardboard wicks water up and collapses.
- Take electronics off the floor and unplug them; don't test whether they still work.
- Open interior doors and closets so air can reach the cavities later.
5. The three mistakes that cost the most
These are the ones that turn a four-day dry-out into a four-week rebuild, in order of how often we see them.
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Waiting to see if it dries by itself
The surface dries. The wall cavity and subfloor don't. Mold commonly starts on wet organic material within 24 to 48 hours, and drywall paper is organic material. The same loss found three weeks later needs containment, disposal and lab clearance.
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Running a household fan across contaminated water
If the water came from a toilet, a sewer line or a floor drain, a box fan aerosolises it into the rest of the house. Clean supply-line water is fine to move air across. Anything else, wait.
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Pulling up flooring before anyone measures
Well-meant demolition frequently removes material that would have dried and misses the wet cavity two feet further along. Moisture mapping first means demolition stops where the water stopped.
6. When to stop reading and call
Call immediately if the water is still coming in, if it's category 3 (sewage or groundwater), if it's crossed into more than one room, if it's gone through a ceiling, or if anyone in the house has asthma or a compromised immune system.
There's no call-out fee and no charge for the assessment, so calling early costs you nothing even if it turns out to be minor. Waiting is the expensive option.