how long does water damage drying take

How long does structural drying actually take?

Surfaces mislead. Cavities decide. Three to five days is common when extraction is prompt — and longer when it is not.

People ask for a number. The honest one is a range, because the building is not a hairdryer.

When standing water is extracted the same night, many Metro Vancouver houses and townhouses close in three to five days. That is not a promise. It is what the log looks like when the first readings are taken while the water is still a drying job.

Surfaces read dry days before cavities do. If a company pulls equipment because the floor feels fine, the callback, the odour, and the mould are already scheduled. We log marked points until every one of them meets target. Equipment billing is capped at five days without written approval — that cap is discipline, not a discount trick.

Psychrometrics — temperature, humidity, and airflow — set the equipment count. More machines are not always faster. The wrong count just bills you.

Hardwood, cabinets, and insulation each have their own clock. Carpet and underlay can be lost in the first day. Drywall and insulation start to fail in the 24–48 hour mould window that IICRC S500 describes. Hardwood cups and cabinets swell after that. Insulation that stays wet is usually a tear-out, not a dry-out. Metro Vancouver rooms are cool and damp, so evaporation is slower than the same loss inland — extract the same night and three to five days is still typical; wait, and the log runs longer. The damage-clock bands on this site are that story written for a stressed reader. Use them to see which job you have, not as a countdown.

If you want a single question to ask any restoration company: will you give me the drying log, point by point, each day, until you close?

Metro Vancouver service:structural drying·published rates