Burst Pipe in Melbourne? Call a Plumber or a Dry-Out Company First?

Water’s coming out of the wall, or across the kitchen floor, and you’ve got your phone in your hand. Who do you call?

The honest answer: both, and at the same time. A plumber fixes the pipe. A dry-out company gets the water out of your floors and walls before it turns into a bigger problem. They’re two different jobs, and the second one has a clock on it.

We’re a local water damage and mold remediation company serving Melbourne and the rest of Brevard County. Here’s what we tell every homeowner who calls us with a burst pipe, in order.

Step 1: Stop the water

Find your main shut-off and turn it off, if you can do it safely. It’s usually outside, either where the water line comes into the house or at the meter by the street. Turning it off stops the damage from growing while you make your calls.

Then, while you wait for help:

• Get anything valuable or irreplaceable out of the wet area: family photos, keepsakes, important papers.
• Move anything breakable out of the way.
• Kick off wet shoes before you leave the wet area. Every trip across the house spreads the water further.
• Keep the doors and windows closed and let your AC run. It feels like fresh air should help, but outside humidity here usually runs 60 to 80%. Your AC pulls moisture out of the air better than the outside air ever will.
• If water is near outlets, appliances or anything electrical, stay out of it.

Step 2: Call the plumber and the dry-out company

The plumber’s job ends when the pipe is fixed. Ours starts with the water that already got out, and most of it isn’t the water you can see.

When water hits the floor, it wicks up into the drywall, under the baseboards, into the bottom of the cabinets and under the flooring. You can mop up every puddle and still have walls full of water. That’s where the trouble starts.

Here’s why the timing matters:

• Mold can start growing within 24 to 48 hours of a leak in our humidity.
• A clean water loss doesn’t stay clean. If materials are still wet by the fourth day, we have to treat them like contaminated water. That means cutting out drywall instead of drying it in place.
• Long leaks get denied. Many policies exclude damage from leaks that went on for 14 days or more.

So don’t wait for the plumber to finish before you call for the dry-out. Get both moving at once. If you don’t have a plumber, we can point you to one we trust.

What a “burst pipe” usually is around here

We rarely deal with frozen pipes on the Space Coast. When someone in Brevard tells us a pipe burst, it’s usually one of these:

• A supply line let go. The lines feeding sinks, toilets, washing machines, dishwashers and refrigerators. Some are plastic. Stainless braided lines are a better option for preventing leaks.
• A slab leak. A pipe under the concrete, very common in older homes. You might notice a warm spot on the floor, wet flooring with no obvious source, or a water bill that jumps.
• The AC backing up. Not a pipe, but it’s the most common water call we see in Florida, and it does the same damage.
• A backed-up drain or toilet overflow. This one changes everything, because it isn’t clean water anymore (more on that below).

The plumber finds and fixes the source. We find where the water went. Thermal imaging cameras show us how far it spread, and moisture meters tell us how wet each material is.

Step 3: Document it, then call your insurance

Before anything gets moved or torn out, take photos and a slow walkthrough video of the wet areas, the broken pipe and anything that got damaged. It makes your claim a lot easier.

A few things we see with Florida policies:

• You can usually choose who does the dry-out. Most of our customers call their insurance company first just to confirm coverage. The insurer will usually try to send its preferred vendor, a company that works for them, not you. We’ve never worked for an insurance company. We work for you.
• Watch for mitigation caps. A lot of policies now cap water mitigation at $3,000.
• Don’t sit on it. Remember the 14-day rule above. Report it as soon as you find it.

We can’t promise what your insurance will pay. That’s between you and your carrier, and every policy is different. What we can do is document everything the way insurance companies want it, so the paperwork backs up your claim. How we document your claim.

What happens when you call us

Every job starts with a free moisture evaluation. We figure out where the water came from, how clean it is, how much got wet, and whether it’s still leaking. Then you get an estimate, so you know roughly what it’ll cost. Nothing starts until you sign off.

On a clean water break, like a supply line, the dry-out usually takes 3 to 4 days. We extract the standing water, pull wet carpet pad and baseboards, drill small holes to get dry air inside the walls, and set air movers, a dehumidifier and HEPA air filtration. We check moisture every day and adjust the equipment until your home matches a “dry standard” reading we take from a wall the water never touched.

If the water came from a drain backup or a toilet, it’s a different job. Any water from a toilet bowl is grossly contaminated, and so is anything backing up from beyond the trap. Those jobs get a flood cut, the bottom 2 or 4 feet of drywall removed, and no fans at all, because blowing air across contaminated materials spreads bacteria through your home. More on gray and black water.

We don’t do the rebuild. Once your home is dry, we connect you with drywall and finish carpentry contractors we trust to put it back together.

Burst pipe in Melbourne, Palm Bay, Viera or anywhere in Brevard? Shut off the main, call your plumber, and call us at (321) 890-2512, Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. You can also request your free moisture evaluation online.

Related: Burst pipe cleanup · Water damage restoration in Melbourne · How long water damage restoration takes

About the author: Daniel Ryan Townsend grew up in Port St. John and has spent 15+ years in the restoration field, starting in his early twenties as a helper for a Brevard County restoration company. He worked his way up from technician to lead tech, supervisor, and management, then opened Affordable Water and Mold Removal in March 2018. He has been IICRC certified for 10+ years and holds the WRT (water damage restoration) and AMRT (mold remediation) certifications, plus Florida mold remediator license MRSR3317.