Mitigating one room of clean water damage in Dallas typically runs $1,200 to $4,000, gray water $2,500 to $6,500, and a flooded slab first floor $3,000 to $12,000. Sewage and large mold jobs sit higher. These are working estimates for Dallas County in 2026, and the emergency-stage price is approved before work starts.
Key takeaways
- Clean-water mitigation of one room or a small area usually runs $1,200 to $4,000, gray water $2,500 to $6,500, and grossly contaminated Category 3 water is priced per square foot at $7 to $15.
- The number that surprises Dallas homeowners most is slab-on-grade flood mitigation of a first floor, $3,000 to $12,000, because with no basement to catch it the water crosses the whole living level.
- Drying is billed by the equipment day, roughly $25 to $50 per air mover and $75 to $150 per LGR dehumidifier, so the count of drying days moves a total more than the address does.
- Every range on this page is a working estimate for Dallas County in 2026, set against published cost guides. It is not a rate card, no single row comes from a published source, and nothing here is what an insurer will pay.
- For outside context, Angi's Dallas page reports water damage projects at $1,791 to $7,922 with an average near $4,788, and labor around $80 to $200 an hour.
- Under Texas Insurance Code Chapter 707 the policyholder pays the deductible, and a contractor may not waive, rebate, absorb, credit or offset it. An offer to do that is a reason to walk away.
How much does water damage restoration cost in Dallas in 2026?
Expect $1,200 to $4,000 to mitigate a single room or small area wetted by clean water in Dallas, rising to $2,500 to $6,500 once the water is gray. A flooded slab first floor runs $3,000 to $12,000. Repairs after drying are quoted separately once materials test dry.
If water is moving across your floor while you read this, the numbers can wait. Close the main valve, which in a lot of Dallas houses sits in the street-side meter box and needs a meter key, and stay off wet floors near outlets and appliances.
The table below is a working estimate for Dallas County, not a published price list. It was built by reading the national cost guides against what local jobs actually involve, and it is the same table used on every page of this site, so a written estimate for your house can be checked against it line by line. No single row traces back to a source you can look up, and no row should be read as what a policy will pay.
Read the low end of a row as a small, contained loss found fast on a hard floor: a laundry room, a hall bath, a kitchen caught while the dishwasher was still running. Read the high end as a loss that sat. Water that ran overnight in a slab house has already crossed three or four rooms, climbed the drywall and soaked the carpet pad and the cabinet toe kicks.
Plumbing and slab-leak repair, water heater replacement, foundation leveling and roof replacement are missing on purpose. The crew does not do that work, so pricing it here would be guessing on someone else's behalf.
| Item | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Emergency inspection and moisture assessment | Free–$200 (often credited if work goes ahead) |
| After-hours, weekend or holiday emergency fee | $100–$300 |
| Standing water extraction (per sq ft) | $1.00–$3.50 |
| Air mover (per unit, per day) | $25–$50 |
| Commercial dehumidifier, LGR (per unit, per day) | $75–$150 |
| Structural drying for one room (3–5 days, equipment + monitoring) | $800–$2,500 |
| Category 1 (clean water) mitigation, one room or small area | $1,200–$4,000 |
| Category 2 (gray water) mitigation, one room or small area | $2,500–$6,500 |
| Category 3 (black water) mitigation (per sq ft) | $7–$15 |
| Sewage backup cleanup, typical house | $2,500–$10,000+ |
| Slab-on-grade flood mitigation, first floor (extraction, flood cuts, drying, antimicrobial) | $3,000–$12,000 |
| Flood cut: remove wet drywall 2–4 ft up (per linear ft of wall) | $3–$8 |
| Drywall replacement: hang, tape, texture, paint (per sq ft) | $3–$7 |
| Ceiling water damage repair (one section, incl. texture + paint) | $450–$1,800 |
| Wet carpet pad removal and disposal (per sq ft) | $0.75–$2.00 |
| Antimicrobial application (per sq ft) | $0.50–$2.00 |
| Water heater or appliance leak cleanup (extraction + drying, one area) | $800–$3,000 (plumber's repair not included) |
| Slab leak water-damage cleanup (drying wet flooring, baseboards, cabinet bases, one area) | $1,200–$5,000 (leak repair by a plumber not included) |
| AC condensate or air-handler leak cleanup (ceiling and wall drying, one area) | $600–$2,500 |
| Pier-and-beam crawl space water removal and drying | $1,000–$4,500 |
| Mold inspection and assessment by a TDLR-licensed assessor (visual + moisture mapping) | $300–$650 |
| Mold air or surface sample (lab fee, per sample) | $75–$175 |
| Small mold remediation (under 25 contiguous sq ft, contained) | $500–$1,800 |
| Large mold remediation (25+ contiguous sq ft, full containment, protocol and clearance) | $3,000–$15,000+ |
| Multi-unit water damage (apartment or condo, per unit mitigated) | $1,500–$8,000 |
| Contents pack-out, cleaning and storage | $1,000–$6,000+ |
| Emergency board-up or roof tarp | $250–$1,200 |
| Commercial water damage | Quoted after a walkthrough |
What do the published cost guides say about Dallas?
Angi's Dallas page reports water damage restoration projects at $1,791 to $7,922, averaging about $4,788, with labor near $80 to $200 an hour. Bob Vila prices the work per square foot by water category. Those are reported figures from outside publishers, useful as a sanity check on any estimate you are handed.
Treat the table below differently from the one above. These are figures other publishers have reported, named so you can go and read them yourself. They cover wide areas and mixed job types, which is exactly why a quote for your house can sit outside them in either direction.
The pattern worth carrying away is that cost per square foot climbs with contamination. Clean supply water is the cheapest water to deal with, washing-machine and dishwasher discharge costs more, and sewage or creek water costs the most, because porous materials it touched come out of the house rather than being dried in place.
The last row is there as a warning, not a quote. Slab-leak repair is a plumber's job, the data behind those numbers is weaker than the rest, and nothing about it belongs in a restoration estimate.
| Reference point | Figure as reported | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Water damage restoration, Dallas | $1,791–$7,922; average about $4,788; labor about $80–$200 per hour | Angi, Dallas water damage cost page |
| Water damage restoration, national | Average about $3,868; most jobs $1,383–$6,369 | Angi |
| Cost per sq ft by water category | Category 1 $3–$4; Category 2 $4–$6.50; Category 3 $7–$7.50 | Bob Vila |
| Drywall repair during restoration | $1.50–$3 per sq ft | Bob Vila |
| Sewage backup cleanup | $2,000–$10,000 | Bob Vila |
| Drying equipment rental | Roughly $200–$3,000 per job | HomeAdvisor |
| Emergency roof tarp, national | Average about $450; range $150–$3,300 | Angi |
| Slab leak repair, Dallas (a plumber's work, never ours) | Projects about $2,500–$9,000; leak detection about $150–$600 | HomeAdvisor and cost aggregators; weaker data, treat as rough |
Why do two houses on the same street pay different amounts?
Six things set most of a water damage bill: how much floor is wet, the water category, which materials soaked, how long the water sat, how many drying days the structure needs, and the hour you called. Two identical ranch houses with the same failed washer hose can land thousands apart on time alone.
Square footage starts the arithmetic, because extraction is priced per square foot and a wider wet area needs more air movers running for more days. Category sets the method: gray and black water bring protective gear, antimicrobial treatment and removal instead of drying.
Materials matter more in Dallas than people expect. Tile set on a slab with a mortar bed can often be dried in place, while engineered wood glued straight to concrete usually cannot be saved, and a textured ceiling that has taken attic water almost always needs cutting and refinishing rather than a patch.
Time is the only factor you control. Clean supply water does not stay clean once it sits in a warm house, and each additional hour carries it higher up the drywall and further into pad, slab surface and cabinet bases.
| Factor | Toward the low end | Toward the high end |
|---|---|---|
| Wet area | One room, a hall or a single bathroom | Several rooms across a slab, or two floors |
| Water category | Clean supply water, Category 1 | Gray appliance discharge, or sewage and floodwater |
| Materials | Tile, sealed concrete, vinyl plank | Carpet and pad, glued-down wood, cabinets, textured ceilings |
| Time before the water stopped | Caught within minutes | Ran overnight, or through a weekend away |
| Drying days | A short run with a small equipment set | Extra days, more dehumidifiers, specialty drying for dense materials |
| When you called | Weekday daytime | Night, weekend or holiday, which adds an emergency fee |
How are extraction and drying priced, and why by the day?
Standing water extraction is billed per square foot at $1.00 to $3.50. Drying is billed per machine per day: $25 to $50 for an air mover and $75 to $150 for an LGR dehumidifier. One room of structural drying over three to five days, with monitoring, usually totals $800 to $2,500.
The first visit is an emergency inspection and moisture assessment, Free to $200 and often credited if the work goes ahead. A technician maps where the water actually went with moisture meters and thermal tools, because a wet wall cavity rarely looks wet from the hallway.
LGR stands for low grain refrigerant, a class of commercial dehumidifier that keeps pulling moisture out of the air after a room already feels dry. A Dallas summer works against it: the outside air is humid, the house is sealed, and the attic above the ceiling is hotter than anything indoors, so machines stay on longer than a homeowner expects.
Charging by the equipment day sounds open-ended, and it is the honest way to do it. Nobody can know on day one how long a bottom plate or a cabinet base will take to give up its water. Readings on every visit are what end the billing: when materials test dry, the machines leave and the daily charges stop.
A call at 2am on a Sunday carries an after-hours, weekend or holiday emergency fee of $100 to $300. Phones are answered at every hour, and a crew is dispatched as fast as one is available, which during a freeze week across North Texas can mean a real wait.
Why do slab and attic losses price differently in Dallas?
Almost no Dallas house has a basement, so water either spreads sideways across a slab or comes down from the attic. Slab losses price by how many rooms the water crossed and how much wall base comes out. Attic and ceiling losses price by ceiling area, texture and the drying of a cavity you cannot see into.
On a slab, water has nowhere to pool. It follows the floor, slides under the bottom plate of a wall and keeps going into the next room, so one failed supply line in a hall bath can wet a bedroom, a closet and the back of a kitchen cabinet run. That is why the slab-on-grade flood row is the largest residential number on the table, and why a flood cut, which removes wet drywall two to four feet up at $3 to $8 per linear foot of wall, shows up on so many Dallas estimates.
Overhead losses price on different lines. Air handlers, condensate lines and drain pans, and in many houses the tank water heater, sit in a vented attic above finished ceilings, so the first sign is usually a stain or a sag. Ceiling water damage repair for one section, including texture and paint, runs $450 to $1,800, and an AC condensate or air-handler cleanup with ceiling and wall drying runs $600 to $2,500.
Older pier-and-beam houses in Oak Cliff, Lakewood and East Dallas have their own row. Crawl space water removal and drying runs $1,000 to $4,500, and cupped hardwood over a wet subfloor can need specialty drying that runs longer than a slab job of the same size. The guide to slab leak signs in Dallas homes covers what the two foundations hide.
Multifamily buildings are priced per unit mitigated, $1,500 to $8,000, because one upstairs failure in an Uptown tower or a garden complex in Irving or Richardson becomes three or four separate jobs with three or four separate ceilings.
What do mold inspection and mold remediation cost in Texas?
A mold inspection and assessment by a TDLR-licensed assessor runs $300 to $650, with lab samples at $75 to $175 each. Small contained remediation under 25 contiguous square feet runs $500 to $1,800, and a job of 25 contiguous square feet or more, with containment, a protocol and clearance, runs $3,000 to $15,000 or more.
Texas prices mold differently from most states because Texas regulates it differently. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation licenses mold assessors and remediators, and a license holder may not both assess and remediate the same project, or hold an interest in both companies on it. A licensed mold assessment consultant writes the remediation protocol and a licensed mold remediation contractor carries it out.
That rule has a direct effect on your wallet: a large Texas mold job comes with two invoices, from two different companies, and any offer to test and remove in one visit is not how the law works. Twenty-five contiguous square feet is the licensing threshold. Below it, the licence requirement does not apply; at or above it, it does.
Keep a second number clear of the first. The EPA's separate rule of thumb is that a moldy area under about 10 square feet, roughly three feet by three feet, can usually be cleaned by the homeowner. That is DIY guidance, not a Texas licensing line, and the two get mixed up constantly.
Mold work you never have to buy is the cheapest kind there is. The EPA advises drying water-damaged areas and items within 24 to 48 hours to limit mold, which is why the drying rows on the table above have more to do with your final cost than the mold rows do. Mold can trigger allergy and asthma symptoms in some people. That is a good enough reason to move quickly, and no reason for anybody to frighten you.
When should you not pay anyone at all?
Plenty of water events are not restoration jobs. A cup of clean water wiped off tile, an old stain that reads dry on a meter, a moldy patch under about 10 square feet, or a split hose bib with nothing wet indoors all cost nothing but your own afternoon. Knowing the difference is the point of this page.
The flip side is worth saying just as plainly. Call when water has crossed into carpet, drywall or cabinets, when it came from a drain, a toilet, a sewer line or the street, when you can smell it but cannot find it, or when you are drying a room with fans and the smell is getting worse rather than better.
The honest reason to move quickly is not fear, it is arithmetic. A one-room job that starts the same night it happened usually stays a one-room job. The same loss found on a Monday after a weekend trip has reached the next two rooms, and the estimate moves up the table rather than down it.
- A small spill of clean water on tile, sealed concrete or vinyl, mopped up within minutes: nothing soaked, nothing to dry.
- A ceiling stain that has been there for years and has already dried out. A moisture meter settles it in one reading, and if it is dry it is a paint job.
- Visible mold under about 10 square feet, which the EPA says a homeowner can usually clean. Fix the leak first or it comes back.
- A dripping condensate line or a full drain pan caught by the secondary float switch. That is an air-conditioning service call, not a drying job.
- A hose bib or irrigation line that split outside with nothing wet inside the wall. A plumber or irrigation contractor handles it.
- A single toilet overflow of clean tank water onto tile, contained to the bathroom and towelled up straight away.
Who pays, and what does the Texas deductible rule mean?
You pay your deductible. Texas Insurance Code Chapter 707 makes it illegal for a contractor to offer to waive, rebate, absorb, credit or offset it, or to help you avoid paying it. A contract of $1,000 or more tied to an insurance settlement must carry written notice that you owe the deductible.
This is the clearest consumer-protection line in Texas restoration work, and it is worth knowing before anyone knocks on your door after a storm. An insurer may also ask for proof that the deductible was paid, and an insurer may not waive your deductible in exchange for using a contractor it prefers.
So when someone offers to eat your deductible, or to build it into the estimate so it disappears, they are offering to break a statute on your behalf. That tells you something about how the rest of the job will be documented.
Coverage itself is never a promise anyone on a job site can make. The crew can give you photos, moisture readings and drying logs to hand your insurer, and your insurer decides the claim under your own policy. The Texas water damage insurance guide sets out what policies here usually cover and what they usually do not.
What should a written estimate show before you approve it?
A sound estimate names the wet rooms and their square footage, the water category and why it was assigned, the equipment count and expected drying days, what is being removed against what is being dried in place, any after-hours fee, and the price for the emergency stage. Repairs come as a separate quote after drying.
Ask about the trades too, because that is where surprises live. Repair and reconstruction after drying may need a city permit, and permits are a city matter here: Highland Park, University Park and Cockrell Hill are separate cities inside Dallas, as are Irving and Garland, and each issues its own. Ask the contractor which permits apply to your address.
Call (833) 490-5225 at any hour and the emergency-stage price gets explained before a single machine is switched on. A crew is dispatched as fast as one becomes available, and you can ask any company on the phone what licences its people hold and which IICRC certifications its technicians carry before you agree to anything.
- Rooms and square footage recorded as wet, with the moisture readings behind them
- The water category assigned, and the reason for it
- How many air movers and dehumidifiers will run, and roughly how many days
- Which materials come out, such as carpet pad, baseboards or drywall to a set height, and which are dried in place
- Whether an after-hours fee applies, and whether the inspection fee is credited against the work
- Photos, moisture readings and drying logs you can give to your insurer
- A separate line, or a separate quote, for the repair work that follows drying
Frequently asked questions
Is the first visit free?
Sometimes. The emergency inspection and moisture assessment runs Free to $200, and it is often credited against the bill if you approve the mitigation. Ask which applies to your call before the technician starts, and get the answer in the written estimate.
Does the cleanup price include repairing the pipe or the slab leak?
No, and it never does. Slab leak water-damage cleanup runs $1,200 to $5,000 with the leak repair excluded, because finding and fixing a line under a slab is plumbing work for a Texas-licensed plumber. The crew dries the floor, the wall bases and the cabinets around the repair.
Why am I billed per drying day instead of one flat price?
Because no one can tell on the first night how long a soaked bottom plate will take to dry. Per-day billing with readings at every visit means the machines come out when the materials test dry. A flat fee has to assume the worst case and charge for it up front.
A contractor offered to cover my deductible. Is that allowed in Texas?
No. Texas Insurance Code Chapter 707 requires the policyholder to pay the deductible and makes it illegal for a contractor to waive, rebate, absorb, credit or offset it. Any contract of $1,000 or more tied to an insurance settlement has to say in writing that you owe it.
Will a job in Highland Park cost more than the same job in Pleasant Grove?
Not for the mitigation itself. The same 2026 ranges apply across Dallas County. What changes a total is the wet area, the water category, the materials and the drying days, so a 1960s ranch with glued-down wood and cabinets can easily cost more than a larger house with tile throughout.
Why does a Texas mold job end up with two bills?
Because TDLR rules keep the roles apart: a license holder may not both assess and remediate the same project. A licensed mold assessment consultant inspects and writes the protocol, and a separate licensed remediation contractor carries it out, so two companies invoice you on a job of 25 contiguous square feet or more.
Sources
- Angi – How much does it cost to repair water damage? (Dallas, TX)
- Bob Vila – How much does water damage restoration cost?
- Texas Department of Insurance – Roofing and insurance: know the law (deductible rules, Insurance Code Chapter 707)
- U.S. EPA – A Brief Guide to Mold, Moisture, and Your Home
- Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation – Mold Assessors and Remediators FAQ
This guide is general information for Dallas County homeowners, not a substitute for an on-site inspection. Prices are estimates. See our disclaimer.