As an IICRC Certified Firm, we restore water-damaged commercial carpet to the IICRC S500 standard, whether the water came from a burst pipe, a roof leak or an overflowing basin. Our flood extraction tools pull the water out of the carpet and off the slab beneath it, then air movers and dehumidifiers run until our moisture meters read the floor dry. A hot water extraction clean finishes the job and puts the floor back into use. Extraction in the first hours saves the most carpet, so call us the moment you discover the water.
Water on a commercial floor is a problem measured in hours. A burst pipe, a leaking roof or a basin left running sends water under closed doors, along the skirtings and across the slab beneath the carpet tiles, well past the patch you can see. We get the water out, dry the carpet and the slab beneath it, and clean the floor so your people can use it again instead of replacing it. A flooded room at home is handled the same way. Call straight away and we estimate the cost over the phone before we set out.
Water caught in the first day or two is usually a drying job. Carpet left wet for longer starts to delaminate, with its backing layers coming apart, and within one to three days mould can start to grow, which makes replacement likely.
Our moisture meters show where the water went, and we keep drying until the floor is dry all the way through, not just dry to the touch.
Once the floor is dry, the affected carpet gets a full hot water extraction clean and a deodorising treatment, so it looks and smells like the rest of your floor.
We take water damage calls 7 days a week, evenings and weekends included, and extraction starts on the first visit.
Call the moment you find it
We talk you through what to do before we arrive, any day of the week, and the carpet is assessed on the first visit, so you know whether it can be saved before you pay to dry it.
Take only the steps you can do safely. Each one limits the damage. If water is still coming in, call your plumber and us at the same time.
If you can reach the valve or the stopcock, turn it off. If it's a roof leak or a storm, move what you can away from where the water is coming in.
Keep people away from power points, power boards and cables near the wet floor. Only switch off at the board if getting to it keeps you out of the water.
Raise boxes, paperwork and electronics onto desks or shelving. Cardboard soaks up water fast, and paper doesn't recover.
It isn't built for water and can give an electric shock. A mop only spreads the water further. Leave the extraction to us.
Before anything is moved, get photos of the water and where it came from. Your insurer will ask for them.
We answer 7 days a week, evenings too
Where the water is, what caused it and roughly how long it's been sitting are all we need to give you a realistic arrival time.
Most commercial carpet has no underlay. It's carpet tiles or broadloom glued straight to the slab, so the water that gets through the carpet runs under the tiles or sits between the carpet and the concrete. We work out the approach for each floor at the first inspection.
Water runs under the tiles and across the slab, and their PVC or bitumen backing slows the drying of the concrete beneath. We dry them where they lie, extracting the water out of the joins and the backing in repeated passes with our flood extraction tools before air movers and dehumidifiers dry the tiles and the slab until both read dry.
Water soaks the carpet and sits on the slab beneath it. Repeated passes with our flood extraction tools recover as much water as possible, then air movers and dehumidifiers dry it in place. A long soak can soften the adhesive and let the carpet lift, and we check for that as it dries.
This carpet is stretched over underlay on gripper strips, which is uncommon in commercial buildings but found in some hotels and boardrooms. Underlay soaked with clean water and caught early can be dried in place. Long-soaked or contaminated underlay has to come out.
We get them off the wet floor straight away, so their dyes can't bleed into the wet carpet (dye transfer) and the floor under them can dry.
Timber beside wet carpet takes up water from below and cups, with the edges of each board rising above the centre. We extract the surface water fast, dry the room, and point out any boards that need a flooring contractor.
Standing water in a basement car park or lift lobby keeps running towards the carpeted areas beyond it. We clear it with the truck-mounted unit before it gets there.
Plasterboard and timber skirtings draw water upwards, and a wet wall keeps the carpet beside it damp. Where the water has wicked only a short way up, the equipment drying the room dries the bottom of the wall too, and the meter confirms it. A wall soaked higher, or wet inside its cavity, is structural drying work, and we'll put you onto a specialist.
We find the water with the meter
Tell us the floor and we map the wet area on arrival without lifting a tile, and the scope says what dries in place.
Under the IICRC's water damage standard, S500, water falls into three categories. We establish which one you have before the drying starts, because the category tells us what can be kept and what has to go.
It comes from a burst supply pipe, a tap or a hot water unit. Caught early, the carpet and the floor beneath can usually be dried and cleaned.
It comes from a dishwasher, a washing machine or an overflow with no sewage in it, and carries significant contamination, so we clean the carpet and apply an antimicrobial as well as drying it.
This is sewage, a drain backing up, or storm water that has crossed the ground outside, and it is grossly contaminated: carpet soaked with it can't be safely kept, and the standard says it should be removed. You'll know that from our first visit.
Clean water left sitting for a day or two picks up contaminants from the carpet, the slab and the building, and is then treated as Category 2. Call early and a Category 1 leak stays a Category 1 job.
Once contaminated carpet is out, we clean the slab and other hard surfaces and apply an antimicrobial before the room is used again.
Tell us where it came from
The source decides the category and what can be saved. Say on the call whether it was a tap, a drain or a flood, and we bring the right treatment.
Alongside the category, the IICRC S500 standard gives every job a class from 1 to 4. The class measures how much water the carpet, the floor and the walls have taken up, and so how much has to be evaporated to dry them: the evaporation load. It sets the size of the drying set-up and how long it runs.
Class 1 and Class 2 jobs are the work we take on: carpet and floors, smaller areas, and walls that are barely wet. When a job goes beyond that, we tell you at the first call or visit and point you to the right specialist, so no time is lost.
Only part of a room is affected, with the carpet and floor lightly wet and very little soaked into anything else. A short drying set-up after fast extraction brings it back.
Carpet and the floor beneath are wet across a whole room or more, and water has wicked a short way up the walls. Extraction, air movers and dehumidifiers dry the carpet, the floor and the bottom of the walls together, and the moisture meter confirms each one.
The most water, often from a burst pipe or a roof leak overhead: walls soaked well up, ceilings and insulation wet as well as the floor. Drying a building in that state is structural drying, a job for a structural drying specialist.
Water is bound deep in concrete, hardwood, stone or plaster, which give it up slowly. These materials need specialist drying methods and far longer drying times, and that is structural drying work too.
We size it on the first visit
Tell us how much floor is wet and how long it's been that way. The class sets the machines we bring; a Class 3 or 4 job is handed to a structural drying company, and we say so on the call.
We scope the job with moisture meters, not by the size of the wet patch. The readings show where the water went, and the price you agree to covers that area. If later readings change the scope, you approve the change on the day.
We take moisture readings at each visit and record them, so you have a record of how the floor dried. An assessor may look at the claim weeks after the water marks have gone, and the readings show what was there.
What was wet, what we did and what it cost, in one document you can pass to your insurer or assessor.
We photograph the wet areas when we arrive and again when we hand the floor back.
Our documents are ready for your building manager on request: certificates of currency for our $20M liability cover and our workers compensation, National Police Clearances, and our Safe Work Method Statement.
You and your broker lodge the claim, and we give you the evidence to support it.
The record comes with the job
Ask on the first call and the moisture readings, the photos and the written scope are kept for your insurer from arrival to handover.
The first step happens on the phone, before we arrive. After that, the category of the water and the type of floor decide how each step is done, and the moisture readings decide when the job is finished. Call first; the scope is written on the visit and the drying days are set from the readings.
The first minutes of the call are about your floor: where the water is, where it came from, what to turn off and what to lift. Then we give you an honest arrival time.
If the source is still running, call your plumber too. Extraction can start before the leak is found.
We check for power near the water, trip hazards and anything that could fall, and only then set up equipment. We screen off and sign the wet areas.
At this stage we also identify the water category (IICRC S500 Category 1, 2 or 3), because it decides what can be saved and how it's treated. Where the water is grey or black, our team works in protective gear and the area stays closed to everyone else.
Buildings from before 1990 can have asbestos in old vinyl floor tiles, their adhesive and fibre-cement sheeting. If the water, or our work, would disturb anything like that, we stop that part of the job until an asbestos assessor has checked it.
Our moisture meters show where the water really went: under carpet tiles, across the slab, up the bottom of the walls, beneath furniture and into rooms beyond the one reported. We check every room it could have reached.
We also take a reading in a room the water never touched. That's the dry standard: the wet areas aren't finished until they read the same. The readings set the class of the job, the scope and the price, and they're the first entry in the record for your insurer.
Boxes, paperwork, rugs and light furniture come up off the wet floor first, so they stop soaking up water and we can reach the whole carpet.
Heavy furniture that stays goes onto blocks or pads. Metal feet left on wet carpet leave rust marks, and timber feet can bleed their stain into the pile.
Standing water comes out first, until nothing more comes up: the truck-mounted unit does it where the hoses can be run in, and portable extractors work the upper floors. Then our flood extraction tools go over the carpet in repeated passes. Commercial carpet stays down and is dried where it lies, so on carpet tiles and glue-down broadloom the tools draw the water back up through the carpet and its joins from the slab beneath.
Water pulled out now doesn't have to be evaporated by the air movers and dehumidifiers later, which shortens the drying, so we keep extracting until no more comes up.
On most jobs, air movers and dehumidifiers do the drying. Air movers drive air across the carpet to speed up evaporation, and dehumidifiers take that moisture out of the room air. Without them the air turns humid and the moisture settles into furniture, stock and rooms the water never reached. That's secondary damage, and the dehumidifiers prevent it.
Every set-up follows the four principles of drying in the S500: remove as much water as possible, evaporate what remains, dehumidify the room so the air can take more, and hold a temperature at which evaporation keeps going.
The slab under the tiles dries slowest, so readings are taken on the backing and the concrete, where the water lingers longest. Where carpet sits on underlay, clean water caught early lets both layers dry in place; underlay soaked with grey or black water comes out, as the S500 sets out.
Where a floor needs more, we bring other professional restoration tools to suit it. Power circuits are checked before anything runs overnight, and at each visit the readings show where the floor is drying slowest, so the equipment moves there.
Once the readings show the floor is dry, we clean the affected carpet with hot water extraction and deodorise it. That removes the soil the water carried in and the source of the musty smell. Where the water category calls for it, we apply an antimicrobial to the carpet and the hard surfaces.
The cleaned areas are read once more, so the record for your insurer ends on a dry floor.
We call the floor dry only when the affected rooms read the same as a room the water never touched. The equipment comes out that day.
Screens come down, furniture goes back, and you get the written scope and the readings for your insurer, with our view on what caused the water.
We stand behind the restoration work we hand over. If anything isn't right after your clean, tell us within 14 days and we'll come back and set it right, at no extra charge.
Flood extraction tools are built to drain a carpet, where a cleaning wand is built to rinse one. On a flooded floor they recover the bulk of the water before any drying equipment is switched on.
Drying days make up most of the cost of a water job, so thorough extraction is the surest way we have to keep your bill down. We work each wet area in slow, overlapping passes: carpet left damp rather than soaked dries in fewer days, and your room is back in use sooner.
The head is kept flat on the carpet while the vacuum runs, so the water is drawn up out of the backing and from underneath it, not just off the pile.
The truck-mounted unit gives the strongest suction, so its hoses run in wherever the van can park close by. Portable extractors take over on upper floors and sites the hoses can't reach.
Neither carpet tiles nor direct-stick broadloom come up, so the extraction has to draw the water up through them from the slab before the drying starts.
Once extraction is finished, the air movers and dehumidifiers go in to dry what's left.
Flood extraction first, then the drying
The extractor draws the water back up through the tiles and the joins before the air movers and dehumidifiers go down.
Water spread across the carpet tiles and timber parquet dance floor of a Perth function venue. We extracted it with the truck-mounted unit, screened off the wet area with signs, and set up air movers across the floor.
We returned each day to check the readings and move the equipment, and the floor was dried in good time. The carpet tiles were then cleaned, and the venue was ready for its next event.
A function venue in Perth
Across carpet tiles and a timber parquet dance floor
Truck-mounted extraction, then air movers, checked every day
Dried in good time, then cleaned for the next event
Tell us the date
The extraction and the drying days are set around it, and the scope in writing says when the floor is handed back.
The water category and class set the drying plan, and the building sets the rules around it: how much noise is acceptable, who needs access and whether you can stay open. Tell us the building on the first call and the plan is set around it before we arrive.
Office floods usually start with a small failure that runs unnoticed over a weekend: a kitchenette hose, a leaking air conditioner in the ceiling, or a leak from the floor above.
We extract and dry around the workstations, keep cables clear of the water, and screen off the air movers and dehumidifiers where they disturb your staff least. Desks go back into use as the floor under them dries.
Most office floors are carpet tiles, and we dry them where they lie: the water is drawn back up through the tiles and their joins, and the drying equipment is set out around the desks so the rest of the office keeps working.
Tell us how many floors are wet and when the office needs them back, and the drying plan works towards that date.
In a strata building, water often crosses from one lot into common property, and working out who is responsible takes time. Extraction begins while responsibility is being settled, so the water isn't left to spread.
The lobby or corridor is fenced off, residents are routed safely around it, and the strata manager gets regular updates. Common areas can't close, so the work is arranged so they don't have to.
After storms, we also clear water from flooded basement car parks and lift lobbies before it reaches the carpeted corridors. See our strata cleaning.
Strata managers can call us direct; we report the readings and the scope to you and the owner, and work around residents' access.
In a shop or venue, a wet floor means lost trade as well as the cost of the clean-up.
Extraction starts the moment we arrive. We screen off the affected area and keep the drying equipment inside it, so most shops and restaurants keep trading around it.
Leaks from a commercial kitchen, a glass washer or a dishwasher are usually Category 2 grey water, so that carpet gets an antimicrobial treatment along with the drying.
Tell us the trading hours and the machines run in the areas you can spare, so you stay open where you can.
A wet floor in a medical room, childcare centre or aged care corridor needs more than drying. The people who use these rooms are more vulnerable than most, so the floor has to be clean as well as dry before they come back.
The water category is settled before anything else, since it sets the treatment: carpet and hard surfaces get an antimicrobial where the category calls for it, and the room reopens only once it's clean and reads dry on our meters. See our medical centre and aged care cleaning.
Say it's a clinic on the first call and the sanitising step and the paperwork come with the drying.
Storerooms keep the most on the floor: archive boxes, a compactus, shelving and fridges. Water that runs under them sits in carpet that no air can reach.
The boxes come up first, because wet cardboard softens and collapses, and a heavy stack holds water in the carpet beneath it. Then we take moisture readings under the shelving and the compactus, where the carpet stays wet longest.
Lift the stock you can and tell us what's left; we work around it and dry the slab beneath.
If your floor needs the same, call us or ask below, or see the gallery first.
★★★★★
Zoran did a magical job on my carpets. I was thrilled they came up as well as they did. I thought I was up for replacing them. I give him a ten out of ten.
★★★★★
We haven’t had our carpets cleaned for more than a 10 yrs and Zoran did amazing job 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Carpets looks as new and perfect. Highly recommend his services. Many thanks
★★★★★
Zoran made our carpets look amazing. He kept us very informed throughout the whole process and was very helpful with other cleaning tips or tricks. Definitely recommend.
★★★★★
Zoran does a fantastic job, very reliable and reasonably priced, highly recommend
Restoration is priced on a written scope. We draw it up on site from moisture readings, the water category and the type of floor.
Water caught within hours is mostly in the carpet and on the surface, and extraction takes out most of it. Water left over a weekend has spread under the tiles, across the slab and into the next rooms, and each of those adds drying time.
Clean water from a burst pipe, grey water from an appliance and black water from a drain are three different jobs. The category decides the treatment and what can be saved.
Water that stays in one office makes a small scope. Once it has run along a corridor, into two tenancies and across a lift lobby, the scope grows with it, and the moisture readings show how far it went.
The scope names the drying equipment and the number of days, and those two make up most of the cost. Drying carpet in place costs far less than replacing it, and an early start leaves more of it worth drying.
Glued-down floors are dried where they lie. Water that has run under the tiles or broadloom across the slab takes more extraction passes and more drying days than water held in the pile.
A storeroom full of boxes, a compactus on the wet floor, an upper floor beyond the truck-mounted hoses or a basement car park with long hose runs makes for a longer job.
Water damage work carries the same $385 minimum charge, GST inclusive, as our cleaning, and on a flooded floor it forms part of the scoped price rather than a separate charge. That price covers the extraction, equipment and drying days set out in the written scope, the same document you can give your insurer. Ask below, or call, and the scope is written on the first visit. For a home, call first for a free cost estimate by phone and we scope the job properly when we arrive.
A regular check of hoses, valves and drains catches most of the failures behind commercial floods.
Every minute the water runs adds to the damage. Label the stopcocks and the main valve, and make sure your after-hours keyholder knows where they are.
Braided flexible hoses under sinks and on dishwashers, fridges and coffee machines burst without warning. Have your plumber replace them every few years, sooner if the braid shows rust or the hose bulges, and look at them each time the carpet is cleaned.
Perth's winter storms overflow blocked gutters, box gutters and car park drains. Have them cleared before June.
A properly dried floor smells of nothing. A musty smell weeks later means moisture is still trapped somewhere, so call us before anyone paints over it or uses air freshener.
Whoever holds the keys after hours needs your plumber's number and ours, so the first call happens in minutes.
Moisture is still there
When a smell returns after a flood, part of the floor never reached its dry standard. We trace the wet patch with a moisture meter and dry it out.
Once the floor is dry, the rest of the building's cleaning can go on the same quote, whatever else is on your list. Tell us what else needs doing and it's quoted once the floor is dry.
The carpet the water never reached still needs its regular clean, and that clean happens when and how you decide.
Our commercial carpet cleaning service →Everyday soiling rinsed out with hot water extraction, when the carpet is dirty rather than flooded.
Our carpet steam cleaning service →Marks that were there before the water, like coffee and toner, get their own spotting after the drying.
Our carpet stain removal service →Once wet wool has dried, a WoolSafe-approved clean with an acidic rinse treats the browning that slow drying can leave.
Our wool carpet cleaning service →Before any water touches a task chair or partition panel, we check the fabric for dye bleed.
Our upholstery cleaning service →Tiled kitchens and washrooms are safe to walk on two hours after we pressure clean the grout.
Our tile & grout cleaning service →Wool and Persian rugs get WoolSafe-approved products and a lighter rinse than synthetic runners.
Our rug cleaning service →Ask us directly
If your question isn't answered here, call us. You'll get a straight answer about your carpet and your premises, with no obligation.
Water damage call-outs are taken 7 days a week, evenings and weekends included, so a leak found on a Friday night isn't left sitting until Monday. Ring us the moment the leak is found. On the call, we'll give you a realistic arrival time and walk you through the first steps until we arrive.
Call Zoran on 0460 815 038.
The written scope does. Our minimum charge of $385, GST inclusive, is the starting point and part of that scope, not an extra. We build the scope from moisture readings taken in each room, and these things shape it:
You agree the price before the work goes ahead. If later readings show the water went further, the change to the scope comes to you for approval first.
Yes. Zoran qualified by IICRC examination in water damage restoration, carpet cleaning, and carpet repair and reinstallation. We're an IICRC Certified Firm, and we work to the IICRC S500 standard for professional water damage restoration. On your floor, that means:
The carpet and the floor are ours to handle: we extract the water, dry what's left with air movers and dehumidifiers, and clean the carpet once it reads dry. If you'd like to know how we'd handle your building, just ask Zoran when you call.
Not ourselves. Our work is Class 1 and Class 2 water damage under the IICRC S500 standard: water in the carpet and the floor, over smaller areas, with the walls barely wet. Class 3 and Class 4 jobs, where water has soaked walls well up, wet the ceilings or got deep into concrete, timber or stone, need structural drying, and that calls for a specialist with the equipment and methods to dry a whole building.
If that's what you're facing, we'll say so on the first call or at the first visit and put you in the right direction, so you're not left waiting while the water spreads.
Most wet commercial carpet is saved when the water is clean and extraction starts early. Three things decide it: how long the water has been there, which IICRC S500 category it falls into, and the type of carpet. Category 1 clean water, such as a split supply hose, extracted within a day or two usually leaves a drying job rather than a replacement. With Category 2 grey water, the carpet is cleaned with an antimicrobial as well as dried. Carpet soaked with Category 3 black water, such as sewage, is removed, following the standard. The longer any water sits, the further it spreads and the more likely the backing is to delaminate, which pushes the job towards replacement.
Of those three, time is the one you control, so shut off the supply at the valve if it's safe to reach, get boxes and paper up off the floor, and keep foot traffic off the wet carpet. For the first hour, step by step, read our commercial flood guide.
Underlay soaked with clean water can usually be dried in place, as long as drying starts early. Carpet on underlay is uncommon in commercial buildings, where most floors are carpet tiles or glued-down broadloom, but we do find it in some hotels and boardrooms.
Our flood extraction tools draw the water out of the underlay as well as the carpet, pass after pass, then air movers and dehumidifiers dry both layers in place. The moisture meter goes on the underlay and the floor beneath it, and the drying runs until both read dry.
Underlay that has stayed wet too long, or was soaked with grey or black water, can't be cleaned and has to come out. Our readings show which of these applies to your floor.
We measure it. A floor is dry when the moisture meter reads the same in the affected rooms as in a room the water never reached, and the drying equipment stays until it does.
Touch isn't a reliable test. The pile can feel dry while the backing of a carpet tile or the slab underneath is still holding water. Moisture left there shows up weeks later as a musty smell, or as brown marks wicking up through the pile. So our readings come from the carpet backing and the slab, not just the pile, before we sign the floor off.
Noisy up close, and much quieter through a closed door or wall. The air movers and dehumidifiers run day and night until the floor is dry, because drying slows right down whenever they're switched off and the job takes longer.
We set the equipment up to disturb your business as little as we can:
The dehumidifiers give off some warmth, so the room runs a little warmer than usual. If a room has to stay quiet for meetings or appointments, tell us and the equipment layout will be set around it.
That depends on your policy, so your insurer or broker is the one to confirm it. We provide the evidence a claim relies on, recorded while the damage is fresh:
Your insurer will want your own pictures too, so photograph the wet floor and the leak's source before anything is moved. The claim itself is lodged by you or your broker, and our paperwork can go straight to the assessor. Assessors and building managers sometimes ask about our own cover as well: we hold $20M public and products liability insurance and workers compensation for our technicians, and we'll send the certificates of currency to whoever needs them.
It isn't too late, but call us today, because a weekend changes the job. Over a weekend, clean water gathers contamination from everything it soaks into, so by Monday it's treated as grey water and the carpet needs sanitising as well as drying. Carpet that has stayed wet that long can also start to delaminate, with the backing coming away.
Much of a weekend-old flood is still a drying job, and the first visit sorts out which parts. We map the water with the meter, put the drying equipment on everything that can still be saved, and tell you straight away what can't, so you aren't paying to dry carpet that has to go. If the backing has already let go, the floor can't be brought back: our article on when to repair, restore or replace carpet explains delamination.
A drain makes it a black water job. Water that comes up through a drain or sewer is Category 3 under the IICRC S500 water damage standard, however clear it looks. Storm water that has run across the ground outside before coming in is treated the same way.
The standard says carpet soaked with black water should be removed rather than dried, and we follow it, so we tell you that before any drying equipment goes down. Once the carpet is out, we clean and sanitise the concrete and any other hard surfaces before anyone uses the room again. If the water has reached the base of walls or partitions, we show you where it reached so your builder can deal with them.
Before we get there, keep people and stock off the wet area, and have a plumber find and clear the blockage.
A smell that lingers months after a leak means moisture is still held somewhere, and once we find it and dry it, the smell can be removed in most cases. In the floor, we usually find it in one of three places:
We find the moisture with the meter, dry it out, then clean and deodorise the carpet. If the readings show the moisture is held in a wall rather than the floor, that's a job for a structural drying specialist, and we'll say so. The smell can't go until its source is dry, which our article on carpet odours covers in detail. Air freshener or fresh paint leaves the damp in place, so the smell returns: call us before anyone tries either. If you can see signs of mould, our mould guide shows what to look for.
Mould goes to a mould remediation specialist rather than to us. Mould remediation has its own IICRC standard, S520, separate from water damage. Carpet that has its water extracted and its drying under way in the first 24 to 48 hours rarely gets that far, which is why we ask you to call the moment you find the water.
If we arrive and find mould already growing in the carpet, on the floor or on the walls, we'll tell you straight away and point you to the right people.
Neither: plumbing, roofing, electrical work and building repairs belong to those trades, and drying out soaked walls and the building structure is structural drying, which belongs to a specialist. We handle what the water did to your carpet and floor: extraction, drying, cleaning and deodorising the carpet.
The plumber can look for the source while we extract, and we set the job up so other trades can work alongside us. Where we find damage outside our work, such as cupped timber boards or water-damaged plasterboard, we flag it so you can book the right trade.
Three to five days is usual for a commercial floor after water damage. That's much longer than the 4 to 8 hours carpet takes to dry after a routine steam clean, because flood water soaks down to the carpet's backing and the concrete beneath it, while a routine clean wets mainly the pile. Concrete is porous and gives up its water slowly, so the slab is usually the last part of the floor to read dry.
The exact time depends on how much water there was, how long it sat before extraction, the type of floor, and the temperature and humidity in the building. The drying equipment runs around the clock, and we take readings at each visit until the floor matches a dry room. A function venue in Perth with a wet parquet dance floor and carpet tiles, for example, was dried, cleaned and back in use for its next event.
Most don't, when the water was clean and we reach it early. We dry carpet tiles where they lie:
Tiles wet with grey water are sanitised during cleaning as well. Tiles soaked with black water, such as sewage or a drain backing up, are replaced. If tiles were left over from the original fit-out, set them aside, because they're the closest colour match.
Only if water sits under it long enough to soften the adhesive, and fast extraction usually stops that happening. We extract with flood extraction tools, run from the truck-mounted unit or, where the hoses can't reach, a portable extractor. Drawn slowly across the carpet, they pull the water out of the backing and off the slab, pass after pass, until no more comes up. Air movers then dry the carpet in place.
As it dries, we check for any areas where the glue has let go. If the carpet has lifted, we tell you, and a flooring contractor re-glues it once the slab reads dry, because fresh adhesive won't bond properly to wet concrete. Until then, keep trolleys and heavy chairs off any raised areas so the carpet doesn't crease or stretch.
Basement car parks, lift lobbies and corridors are part of our flood work: after a storm or a burst pipe, we clear the water from them with the truck-mounted unit before it reaches the carpeted areas next to them.
Clearing the concrete first protects the carpet beside it, which takes far longer to dry. We then check the edges of that carpet with the moisture meter, in case water has already run underneath. In strata buildings, the lobby or car park stays fenced off and the strata manager is kept up to date while we work. Long hose runs down into a basement add time, and the scope allows for them. If a blocked drain or box gutter caused the flood, have it cleared before the next storm.
How we respond to a burst pipe depends on the building: a surgery brings hygiene rules, a strata lobby brings residents who still need access, and a shop or stockroom brings trading hours to work around. Your building type is listed below, with a page of its own.
Your building not listed? Call anyway; every flooded floor is assessed the same way, on the first visit.
With standing water, don't wait on the form: ring Zoran now on 0460 815 038. For anything that can wait, the building, where the water came from if you know, and how long the floor has been wet are enough for us to arrange a free assessment.
Describe what you can see when you ring, and we'll help you limit the damage over the phone, at no cost and with no booking needed. We're open 7 days.
