Moisture mapping, extraction, structural drying and repair for Dallas homes and businesses, whether the water came from above or below.
Fastest: call (833) 490-5225. Or send this and we call you back.
Dallas Water Damage Restoration handles water damage restoration across Dallas and Dallas County: finding every wet material, pulling out the water, drying the structure and repairing what had to come out. Phones are answered 24/7, a crew is dispatched as fast as one is available, and the emergency-stage price is approved before any work begins.
Start by stopping the water. In a lot of Dallas-area houses the main valve sits inside the street-side meter box at the curb, and some homes have a second valve where the line enters the house or the garage wall. A meter key costs a few dollars at any hardware store, and the time to buy one is now rather than at two in the morning.
Dallas water damage tends to arrive one of three ways, and none of them involve a basement. It comes down from the attic, where the air handler, its condensate line and often the tank water heater all live above your ceiling. It comes up through the slab, where supply and drain lines are buried in Blackland Prairie clay that swells and shrinks with the weather. Or it comes in from outside, when a cloudburst puts more water on the street than the drainage can carry.
Restoration is the whole path from wet to finished: a moisture inspection, extraction, controlled drying with air movers and dehumidifiers, then the drywall, trim and flooring repairs. Repairing the pipe itself is the work of a Texas-licensed plumber, and lifting or leveling a foundation belongs to a foundation company or a structural engineer. The crew dries and cleans everything the water reached.
Extraction is usually a matter of hours. One room with equipment running normally needs three to five days, and nothing is rebuilt until the readings say the materials are dry. A whole first floor on a slab, with cabinets and glued-down flooring in the path, can run several weeks to final paint.
Concrete sets the pace. A slab holds water deep in its pores and gives it back slowly, and glued-down wood, thick-set tile and plaster belong to the Class 4 category that IICRC guidance calls specialty drying. In July and August, with the house sealed up and the air conditioning running all day, the dehumidifiers earn their keep.
The temptation is always to start the rebuild early. Closing a wall over a damp bottom plate shuts moisture in against the framing, which is how an ordinary clean-water leak turns into a mold problem by the fall. The daily readings, not the calendar, say when a room is ready.
Most Texas policies cover water damage that is sudden and accidental, such as a split supply line, a failed washer hose or an overflowing toilet. The Texas Department of Insurance notes that gradual leaks and seepage, flooding, and sewer or drain backup are generally not covered unless a rider was added. Your insurer decides coverage.
Get photographs taken before anything is moved, shut the water off if you can do it safely, and open the claim early rather than once the drying is finished. Moisture readings, dated photos and a list of removed materials come from the crew, and all of it is yours to send on. What is covered and what is paid is your insurer's decision under your own policy, so bring your agent in on day one.
The Texas water damage insurance guide sets out the usual exclusions in plain language. If a claim stalls, the Texas Department of Insurance answers consumer questions and takes complaints about homeowners claims.
A slab floor is close to level, so water spreads outward instead of collecting in one pit. It runs under the bottom plate of walls, travels through carpet pad into the next room and climbs drywall by wicking. One burst line in a hallway can leave three rooms wet before anyone notices a puddle.
Basements are rare in Dallas, which changes the whole shape of the job. There is no sump to pump and no stairwell holding the water in one place. Instead the water fans out across the slab, finds the low corner of a room that was poured a hair out of level, and soaks the materials that sit right on the concrete: carpet pad, tack strip, the paper face of drywall and the particleboard bottoms of kitchen and bathroom cabinets.
That is why speed matters more than drama here. The EPA's guidance is to dry water-damaged materials within 24 to 48 hours to limit mold growth, and a closed-up Dallas house in summer hands mold both the warmth and the humidity it needs. The EPA is explicit that 24 to 48 hours is guidance rather than a cutoff, and its pages warn that mold can already be growing in materials dried inside 48 hours, so fast drying improves the odds without settling the question. Scanning with a thermal camera and confirming with a meter finds the damp band inside the next room's wall before any drywall is opened.
Three different trades. A Texas-licensed plumber repairs the pipe, slab leak, fixture or water heater. The restoration crew extracts, maps moisture, dries, cleans and documents. Repair work such as drywall, flooring and cabinets is quoted after drying, and foundation leveling goes to a foundation company or structural engineer.
Keeping the roles straight saves days. The crew can close valves, cap a line, start extraction and set drying equipment while your plumber schedules the permanent repair. Plumbing in Texas is licensed through the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners under the Occupations Code, and you can look up a plumber's license on the board's website before anyone opens a wall or a slab.
If the house was built before 1980, ask about asbestos before old joint compound, textured ceilings or sheet flooring is cut. Texas runs an asbestos program through the Department of State Health Services, and the rules differ between single-family homes and buildings treated as commercial, which includes apartment buildings with more than two dwelling units. Pre-1978 homes also fall under the EPA lead renovation rule, which calls for lead-safe work practices.
Drying fast is the best mold prevention there is, though it cannot promise that nothing will grow. If mold has already grown, Texas regulates the work: the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation licenses mold assessors and remediators, a license is required once the affected area reaches 25 contiguous square feet, and one license holder may not both assess and remediate the same project.
That separation is a Texas rule worth understanding before you hire anyone. A licensed mold assessment consultant inspects, samples if needed and writes the remediation protocol. A different, separately licensed remediation contractor carries that protocol out, and within 10 calendar days of the project stop date the property owner receives a Certificate of Mold Damage Remediation on a form adopted by the Texas Commissioner of Insurance. No single company can honestly offer you one-stop testing and removal on a job that size.
Two numbers get mixed up constantly, so keep them apart. The Texas licensing threshold is 25 contiguous square feet. The EPA's unrelated rule of thumb says a patch smaller than roughly 10 square feet is usually within a homeowner's reach. The mold inspection page explains what an assessment covers, and because mold can trigger allergy and asthma symptoms in some people, handling it properly beats painting over it.
Keep out of standing water that has reached outlets, cords, a washer, a furnace or an air-handler disconnect, and kill power to that area only when you can get to a dry panel without crossing the water. A household shop vacuum has no business on floodwater or sewage, a box fan aimed at visible mold makes things worse, and new drywall should never go up before the readings clear the bottom plate. Call (833) 490-5225 and wait somewhere dry.
The crew confirms the water is off, looks for electrical hazards around the wet area and works out where the water started: a supply line, a drain, an appliance, an AC condensate line, the roof, under the slab or the street. If a pipe or fixture needs repair, you are told to book a licensed plumber straight away so the drying is not held up waiting on it.
A thermal camera and both pin and pinless meters mark the edges of the wet area: how high water climbed the drywall, how far it ran beneath the flooring, whether it crossed a bottom plate into the next room. Every reading and photo is logged from the first visit, so you finish the job holding a record you can hand to your insurance company.
Portable and truck-mounted extractors pull water out of carpet, tile and bare concrete. Pad that has turned into a sponge, cabinet bottoms that have swollen and drywall holding water inside it are cut back, usually two to four feet up, so air reaches the framing and insulation behind. Nothing is opened until you have agreed to it.
Air movers and low-grain refrigerant dehumidifiers stay in place while a technician comes back to re-read the same points, usually daily. The target is a reference reading taken off an unaffected wall in the same house, because drywall and framing can feel perfectly dry on the surface while the stud behind is still holding water.
Putting the room back, from drywall and texture through paint, trim and flooring, is priced on its own once drying is signed off. Texas has no statewide general-contractor license, but repair work can still need a city permit, so ask which permits apply where you live before the first sheet goes up.
The attic is the mechanical room in much of Dallas, so a clogged condensate drain, an overflowing drain pan or a failed attic water heater sends water along the ceiling joists before it ever shows itself. The stain often appears a room away from the leak. Ceiling water damage and AC condensate leaks cover those sources in detail.
A split supply line or a cracked drain line under a slab-on-grade foundation wets flooring, wall bases and cabinet bottoms from underneath, with a perfectly dry ceiling above. There is no dramatic moment, just a warm spot, a running meter or a damp hallway. Slab leak water damage explains what the crew dries and what the plumber opens.
Creek rises and street flooding after a heavy storm push water under exterior doors and across the garage slab. That water is Category 3 under the IICRC S500 standard, so porous materials are removed rather than dried, and the cleanup follows the rules on the flood damage cleanup page.
Four things set the number on a Dallas water loss: the wet footprint, the category of water, the materials involved and the number of drying days they need. The Dallas water damage cost guide puts published ranges beside each of them.
| Job | Typical range | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency inspection and moisture assessment | Free–$200 (often credited if work goes ahead) | Meter and thermal-camera walk-through of the wet area and the rooms next to it |
| Standing water extraction (per sq ft) | $1.00–$3.50 | Varies with depth and whether the water sits on carpet, tile or bare slab |
| Structural drying for one room (3–5 days, equipment + monitoring) | $800–$2,500 | Air movers, dehumidifier and the daily moisture checks |
| Category 1 (clean water) mitigation, one room or small area | $1,200–$4,000 | A supply line or appliance leak caught early |
| Category 2 (gray water) mitigation, one room or small area | $2,500–$6,500 | Washer or dishwasher discharge, or a urine-only toilet overflow, with more removal and cleaning |
| Drywall replacement: hang, tape, texture, paint (per sq ft) | $3–$7 | Quoted after drying, once everyone knows how much drywall came out |
Estimates for Dallas County in 2026, set against published cost guides rather than taken from a price list. You approve the emergency-stage price before work starts, and the repair stage is quoted once drying is finished. Texas law also bars a contractor from paying or absorbing your insurance deductible, so plan for it.
Tell us what's happening and we'll tell you honestly whether it's a quick fix, and what water damage restoration should cost.
Dallas sits on Blackland Prairie clay, and that clay is the reason water damage here behaves the way it does. It swells when it takes on water and shrinks when it dries out, and the water and drain lines buried under a slab are not built to flex with it. August bakes the clay until it cracks, then a downpour pours straight into those cracks and swells it again. Over enough seasons that movement stresses buried joints, which is why under-slab leaks are a standing item on this list and not an oddity.
The second local pattern is that the mechanical equipment lives overhead. Air handlers, condensate lines and drain pans, and in many houses the tank water heater, sit in a vented attic above finished ceilings. Add a hail season that bruises and cracks shingles in spring, with a second round of storms in the fall, and ceilings become the usual place water first announces itself. A leak that starts weeks after a hailstorm is normal, not suspicious.
The calendar is predictable enough to plan around. January and February bring the rare hard freeze and the burst attic lines that come with it. March through May is hail, heavy rain and saturated ground. June through August runs air conditioners nonstop, overflows condensate lines, shrinks the clay and then drops a cloudburst on it. October brings a second severe-weather season, and November and December bring first freezes plus empty houses while families travel.
Pumping, extraction and same-visit drying setup for standing water in Dallas homes, apartments and businesses.
Cleanup and drying for water that came up through a Dallas slab, with the pipe repair left to a licensed plumber.
Drying slab floors, wall cavities and framing to a measured standard, with readings logged daily instead of guessed.
Finding the moisture behind the smell in Dallas homes, and what Texas requires of a licensed mold assessment.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
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.
A slab leak is a break in a water or drain line buried under a slab-on-grade foundation.
Texas homeowners policies generally cover water damage that is sudden and accidental, such as a burst pipe, a toilet overflow or a broken washing-machine hose.
Texas licenses mold work through TDLR.
A slab house spreads water sideways across the floor and wicks it up the drywall, where it hides under tile, pad and cabinet bases.
Usually not. Drying equipment is noisy and warm, and a room with the flooring and lower drywall removed is not pleasant to sleep in, but most households stay put and close doors on the affected rooms. If a kitchen, the only bathroom or a large part of the first floor is involved, or the water was sewage, staying elsewhere for a few nights is the easier choice.
Only where the meter says water is inside it or sitting behind it. An exterior wall with wet insulation in the cavity is normally opened two to four feet above the floor, a cut the trade calls a flood cut, because a sealed cavity will not dry. Every cut is explained and photographed first, and sound drywall is dried in place whenever the numbers allow it.
Sometimes, and it depends on how long it was wet and how it was installed. Engineered planks over a slab can occasionally be dried in place with specialty mats that pull moisture up through the floor, but boards that have cupped hard, delaminated or lost their bond usually come out. The honest answer comes from the meter after a day or two of drying.
Photos of the damage before and during the work, daily moisture readings, a record of what equipment ran where and for how long, and a list of materials removed. You pass that to your insurance company. Coverage and payment are decided by your insurer under your policy, and no contractor in Texas can waive or absorb your deductible.
No Texas license class specific to water extraction, drying and moisture monitoring turned up. Neighboring trades are licensed: plumbing sits with the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, and mold assessment and remediation with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification is an industry body rather than a government one; it writes the S500 standard and certifies individual technicians, and you are free to ask which of those certifications the technicians on your job hold.
Dallas itself plus the neighborhoods and cities within about 25 km, all in Dallas County: Oak Cliff, Lakewood and East Dallas, Pleasant Grove, Preston Hollow, Lake Highlands, Northwest Dallas and Red Bird, along with Irving, Garland, Mesquite, Richardson, Duncanville, DeSoto, Lancaster, Balch Springs, Sunnyvale, Hutchins and Wilmer. Give your address on the call and you will be told straight away whether a crew can reach you.