What restoration means when the water came from inside a desert house
Las Vegas gets about four inches of rain a year at the airport station, so most water damage here starts indoors. A supply line lets go behind a washer. A water heater tank rusts through in the garage. A pipe under the slab starts to weep. The water is clean at first, and that is the good news. The bad news is that clean water does not stay clean. Water left standing breaks down over time, and faster when it is warm, which describes a valley house most of the year.
That is why we treat every call as two jobs. Mitigation stops the damage from spreading. Restoration puts the house back. Plenty of companies only do the first half and hand you a list of open walls. We came up doing drywall, insulation and paint, so the second half is the part we know best.
How a job runs, in order
Safety and the source
We check for live power near the water and confirm the source is stopped. A plumber fixes a pipe or a water heater. We dry what it wet.
Sort the water
Clean water from a supply line is Category 1. Washer or dishwasher water and a toilet overflow without feces are Category 2. Sewage and outside floodwater are Category 3. The category decides what can be dried and what has to go.
Map the moisture
A meter goes on the walls and floors in a pattern around the wet spot until we find its edges. We also take a reading in a room the water never touched. That reading is the dry standard for your house.
Remove what cannot be saved
Soaked pad, swollen baseboard and drywall that is soft or wet from dirty water come out. We cut drywall in straight lines at a height that makes the patch easy to finish later.
Dry with equipment sized to the room
Air movers go about one per 10 to 16 feet of wall. Dehumidifiers are sized to the room volume. Readings get logged until they match the dry standard.
Rebuild
New insulation where it was wet, new drywall, tape, texture to match, primer and paint. One crew from the first reading to the last coat.
Why the dry standard matters more than the number of fans
Customers who have been through a bad job say the same thing. The crew left, the wall looked dry, and a month later it smelled. A dry surface is not proof the wall cavity is dry. Moisture meters read relative to a known dry spot, so the only fair finish line is a reading that matches a dry room in the same house. We show you those readings before anything gets closed up.
For drywall in particular, damage can start at just over 1 percent moisture content on the gypsum scale. That is a small number, and it is why we do not close a wall on a guess.
What makes valley houses different
- Very hard water. The Las Vegas Valley Water District rates its water at 291 parts per million, or 17 grains per gallon. It is not a health issue, but scale builds up in water heaters and on fixtures, which is part of why tanks and valves here wear out.
- Slab foundations. Caliche, a hard cemented soil layer, is the main reason valley homes rarely have basements. Water from a slab leak has nowhere obvious to go, so it shows up late as a warm floor or a lifted tile.
- Monsoon season. The county flood district names July through September as the monsoon months, with sudden downpours and flash flooding even on sunny days. That is when roof and ceiling calls spike.
- Heat. The airport station logs about 79 days a year at 100 degrees or more. Hot attics and garages speed up how fast standing water goes bad.
What restoration costs, and what moves the price
National cost guides put the average water damage job near $3,000, with most landing between $1,200 and $5,000. A toilet overflow can start near $350. A black water job in a large space can run far higher. Those are national figures, not a quote for your house. What moves the price is the category of water, how many rooms got wet, how long it sat, and how much drywall and flooring has to come out.
| Class | What it looks like | National range |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Part of one room, little soaked into walls | $150 to $400 |
| Class 2 | A whole room, walls wet less than 24 inches up | $500 to $1,000 |
| Class 3 | Water from overhead, ceilings and walls soaked | $1,000 to $3,000 |
Restoration is priced separately. National guides list drywall restoration at about $1.50 to $3 per square foot. We write the rebuild as its own line so you can see it.
Who to call first, a plumber or us
If water is still coming out of a pipe, shut the main valve and call a plumber. If the water is already stopped, call us. In the valley the main shutoff is usually in the front yard near the sewer riser cap, in the garage, or at a manifold. Once the source is off, the clock that matters is the drying clock.