A burst supply line, a failed water heater, rain driven under a door by a summer squall — however the water got in, what you do in the next 24 hours decides most of what this event will cost you. Here's the same playbook our crews give Charleston homeowners over the phone, in order.
Hour 0–1: Stop the Source, Stay Safe
- Shut off the water if it's plumbing. The main shutoff in most Charleston-area homes is at the meter box near the street or where the supply line enters — often in the crawl space or garage. Every adult in the house should know where it is before they need it.
- Kill power to affected rooms at the breaker — not at the outlet. Water and energized wiring share walls. If the panel itself is wet or you'd have to stand in water to reach it, stay out and tell us when you call.
- Stay out of rooms with sagging ceilings. A ceiling holding water can fail all at once.
- Don't use a household vacuum on standing water — it's an electrocution risk and it doesn't touch the water inside walls and flooring anyway.
Hour 1–2: Document Everything
Before you move a single towel, take photos and video — wide shots of each affected room, close-ups of damaged materials, the source of the water if you can see it, and serial numbers on damaged appliances. Your insurance adjuster will ask for this, and thorough documentation is the difference between a smooth claim and a contested one.
Charleston insurance wrinkle: where the water came from decides which policy pays. Water from above — pipes, roof, appliances — is a homeowners claim. Water rising from outside — storm surge, king-tide flooding, overwhelmed drainage — is a flood claim (NFIP or private). Photograph the source clearly; it matters more here than almost anywhere else in the country.
Hour 2–4: Call for Professional Drying
This is the step people delay — and the one the whole outcome hinges on. Here's the Lowcountry math: mold can establish in 24–48 hours, and Charleston's baseline humidity sits high enough that evaporation alone never dries a wet wall cavity, wet subfloor, or wet crawl space. Surface-dry is not dry. Our moisture meters routinely find saturated framing behind drywall that "feels fine."
A professional crew (what that visit looks like) extracts standing water, pulls moisture readings on every affected material, sets commercial dehumidifiers and air movers sized to the actual load, and documents the whole thing in the format your adjuster expects.
Hour 4–24: Salvage and Triage
- Move furniture out of wet rooms, or put foil or blocks under legs you can't move.
- Lift rugs off wet floors; pin up drapes and bedskirts.
- Pull books, photos, and documents out of the wet zone — paper goods can often be saved if they're stabilized fast.
- Don't run the HVAC if ducts or returns took on water — you'll distribute moisture (and later, spores) through the whole house.
- Start a simple log: times, what you did, who you called. Claims love timelines.
What NOT to Do
- Don't wait for the adjuster to start drying. Every policy requires you to mitigate further damage; delay works against your claim, not for it.
- Don't rip out wet materials yourself before documentation — you can void coverage for what you removed.
- Don't trust a box fan and open windows. In July in Charleston, open windows add moisture.
- Don't assume a small leak is a small problem. The visible stain is the end of the water's path, not the extent of it.
The Crawl-Space Caveat (Read This If Your Home Is Raised)
A huge share of homes from the peninsula to James Island to West Ashley sit on raised foundations. When water damage happens upstairs, some of it usually ends up down there — and an unchecked wet crawl space becomes a mold and rot problem months later, invisible until floors cup or the house starts smelling musty. If you've had a water event, have the crawl space checked. It's part of every assessment we run.
The Short Version
Shut it off. Kill the power. Photograph everything. Call for drying within hours, not days. Save what's movable. And remember the number that makes the rest easy: (843) 790-5769 — answered by a real person, 24/7, from right here on James Island.