Pumping and removing standing water from floors, cellars and crawl spaces, answered around the clock across Anchorage.
Fastest: call (833) 490-5225. Or send this and we call you back.
Emergency water extraction is the removal of standing water from floors, cellars and crawl spaces before drying can begin. Anchorage Water Damage Restoration answers calls at any hour and sends a crew as soon as one is free. Pumps and extraction tools take the free water out, and the crew then finds where it came from.
Standing water does damage on its own schedule. Within the first hours it wicks up drywall and plaster, soaks into carpet pad and the bottom plates of walls, and begins to swell subfloor board. Every hour it sits, the number of materials that have to come out grows. The first job is therefore to get the free water off the floor, and the drying plan can wait until that is done.
Water reaches a standing pool in a home in several ways. A supply line can split inside a wall and run for hours before anyone hears it. A drain can fail to keep up in a heavy rain. Meltwater can come in under a door or through a cellar wall, and a water heater can let go in a utility room. The crew works the same way at the start whichever it is, which is to remove the free water first and then find what sent it there.
Before the crew arrives there are three things you can do safely. Close the main shut-off if you can reach it, keep out of water that is near outlets, cords or a wet panel, and lift small items above the waterline. Do not use a household vacuum on standing water, and do not walk into a room where the power may still be on. A wet electrical panel is a call-ahead item for the line, not a job for the homeowner.
Do not walk into standing water until the power to that room has been confirmed off at the panel, and do not touch a cord or outlet that is in water. Do not run a gasoline generator or any combustion heater indoors to power pumps, because the exhaust can kill. Keep children and pets out of the wet area, and do not use bleach or a strong cleaner on standing water, because the mix of products can make the air unsafe.
Tell the line which floor the water is on, where it seems to come from, how long it has been running and whether it looks clean. The line asks you to close the main if that is safe and to stay out of water near power. A crew is sent as soon as one is free, and no arrival time is promised.
The technician walks the wet area first and checks the power, the source and the category of the water. Clean supply water, water that came up a drain and water from outside are handled differently, so the first decision is which one this is. Where water is in contact with a circuit, the crew waits until the power to that zone is confirmed off.
Submersible pumps take water out of a cellar or sump, and wet vacuums with extraction heads lift it off finished floors. Carpet is lifted and the pad removed where water has gone through, because pad keeps its water long after the surface feels dry. Furniture and loose items are moved out of the water or raised on blocks.
Water keeps arriving after the pumps finish if the source is still running. The crew shuts off the affected supply, checks the drain path and notes where the water entered, so the repair can be booked against the right part of the house. The repair itself is made by a plumber or the appropriate tradesperson, not by the extraction crew.
Before leaving, the crew logs the volume removed, photographs the water line and the cleared floor, and notes which materials are still wet. That record is what you give your insurer, and the drying plan begins from it the next day.
Damage begins within hours. Water wicks up plaster and drywall, soaks into carpet pad and starts to swell the bottom of wood framing. The longer it stands, the more materials have to be removed rather than dried, which is why removal comes before any drying plan.
The materials differ in how they fail. Hard surfaces such as tile can be cleaned and dried in place. Carpet pad, particleboard and the paper facing on drywall absorb water and hold it, so they are usually removed. Wood framing stays wet inside the cavity for much longer than the room looks wet, and that is the reason the crew checks readings rather than the floor.
Standing water also moves sideways. It travels under a sill plate, behind baseboard and into the gap under a door, and it can reach a room two walls away within the first hour. A crew that only mops the visible floor leaves the rest of the wet material in place. Extraction is done to the edges of the wet zone, not just to the puddle.
Stop water from arriving and keep people away from it, but do not try to remove large volumes with household tools. A wet vacuum from a hardware store is not a substitute for extraction equipment, and a homeowner who runs a pump in standing water can be hurt by the cord, the outlet or the electrical circuit.
Some steps help and are safe: closing the main, lifting rugs and small items, moving furniture off the wet floor, and photographing the water line before anything is touched. Those photographs are useful to you and to the insurer, and they cost nothing.
Running a sump pump that is still working, or a cellar pump that is not connected to a live circuit, is a judgement the homeowner can make with care. Anything plugged into a wet outlet, or any cord lying in water, is left alone until the power is off at the panel. The crew will tell you whether the equipment it brings is safe to run where the water is.
The carpet is lifted from its tack strip where water has soaked through the pad, and the pad is removed and discarded if it is wet through. Carpet can often be cleaned and dried if the backing and the pad are sound and the water was clean and removed quickly.
Lifting the carpet is done early because wet carpet traps moisture against the subfloor and holds it there. A subfloor that stays damp under a carpet can swell, cup or grow mold within days, and the carpet only hides that until it is too late. The crew lifts, records and stacks the carpet so it can be dried or assessed later.
Hardwood and laminate are handled differently. Water between boards is removed, the boards are opened where needed to let the cavity vent, and the floor is dried in place. Where the boards have already cupped, the decision to keep or replace them is made after the drying readings are taken, not during the extraction.
The crew decides by the category of the water, the time it has been in contact with a material, and the material itself. Porous materials that have been wet for more than a short time are removed, while non-porous ones are cleaned and dried in place.
Moisture meters and a thermal camera show where the water has reached inside walls and under floors. Those readings are compared with a dry reference from an undamaged part of the house. Anything that reads well above the reference is either removed or marked for a follow-up check.
The crew does not promise that a particular item will be saved. It says what it expects to keep, what it expects to remove, and what it will check again on the next visit. Those decisions are made on evidence from the readings, and they are explained to you before the material leaves the house.
Three things add time and effort: how much water there is, how long it has been sitting, and how hard the building is to reach. A basement with a single access point, a crawl space and a finished room above it all add steps, and each one is priced only after it is seen.
Access matters. A cellar that is reached by a narrow stair, a crawl space with a low opening, or a room on an upper floor that water has run down through all need more equipment and more time. The crew tells you what it has found when it sees the building, and it explains why each step is needed.
Price is set on site. The crew shows you the scope, the equipment it expects to need and the reasons for any extra step before work begins. Nothing is added to the job without an explanation and your approval, and no figure appears on this page because the water in your building is the only thing that sets it.
Water from a supply line, a water heater, a washing machine hose or an icemaker is the most common case and the least hazardous. It is still assessed for how long it has been in contact with materials, because water that sits in a wall or under a floor for a day or two changes how much has to come out. The crew treats the surface, the pad and the framing at the edge of the wet zone.
Water that came up or back through a floor drain, a toilet or a sewer line is handled as contaminated from the first minute. The crew wears protective gear, removes soaked porous materials such as pad and drywall at the base, and cleans with products suited to that category. A backup is not a clean-water job, and it should be named as one on the phone so the right crew arrives.
Water that came in from snowmelt, a blocked drain outside or a storm running against a cellar wall carries soil and whatever the ground held. It is treated as contaminated. The crew checks the foundation side and the window wells as well as the interior, because water that enters from outside often has a second entry point that the first look misses.
Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility supplies the city and, under the same utility, Chugiak-Eagle River, Peters Creek, Eklutna and Girdwood. A supply break in any of these places is a house-side problem to extract first, and the utility side is sorted out separately, usually with the utility itself.
Chugiak has its own fire service area under Municipality code, and Girdwood has its own service area. Those lines do not change how the water is removed, but the address you give on the call decides which crew is routed to it.
Basements, crawl spaces and utility rooms are where water collects first in most houses, and each one is reached through a different opening. The crew plans the route for each at the start rather than working room by room, so the pumps and vacuums go where the water actually is.
If it's an emergency, call now. For non-urgent emergency water extraction, send the form and we'll call you back.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
Air movers and dehumidifiers that dry walls, framing and subfloors to moisture readings, not to appearance.
Lifting and drying wet carpet, pad and hardwood, and deciding what can be kept, from readings taken on the subfloor.
Water from a frozen, split supply line in an exterior wall, crawl space or cellar, answered 24/7 in Anchorage.
Cleaning up sewage that backed up through a floor drain or toilet, traced to the utility main or the house drain.
A water damage restoration quote depends on how much area is wet, how deep the water has travelled, which materials must be removed rather than dried, and how hard the building is to reach.
A frozen pipe often splits while it is still frozen and leaks only once it thaws.
Hire a water damage firm by asking which credentials it holds and whether they apply in Alaska, what the Municipality of Anchorage may require for permits, for proof of insurance, for a written scope and for references from recent jobs.
After water damage in Alaska, photograph the damage before any cleanup, keep the damaged materials until the insurer has seen them, keep every utility and contractor record, and report the loss to the carrier early.
A sewer backup starts either in the utility's sewer main or in the house drain, and the answer decides who clears the blockage.
You can remove a small amount of water with a bucket or a towel if the power is off and the water is clean. Anything larger should wait for the crew's pumps. Stop the source first, so you are not removing water that keeps coming in.
It stops the water from spreading and removes the part that can be lifted. It does not dry the building. Walls, framing and subfloors can stay wet inside, and the drying plan is what brings those readings down.
Calls are answered at any hour, and a crew is sent as soon as one is free. No arrival time is promised, because one cannot be given honestly over the phone before the crew knows how busy it is.
Move what you safely can, and leave heavy or electrical items for the crew. Put small items on a dry surface and photograph the room before anything is moved, so the position of the furniture and the water line are on record.
Tell the line that. In many houses the shut-off is in the cellar or near where the service enters the building, but it is not always easy to find. The crew can locate and close it on arrival, and it will tell you where it is for next time.
Whether a policy pays is decided by the policy and the insurer, not by this company or the crew. Ask the crew for the written record of the extraction, and send that record to your insurer with your photographs. The price is explained and approved by you before the work starts.