where does water go after a leak

How water moves through a building

It does not stay in the room you can see. Joists, cavities, and bottom plates carry it two rooms over.

Gravity is obvious. Capillary travel in drywall and subfloors is the part people miss. A ceiling that looks fine can be a pond in the cavity.

Stacked plumbing in strata is a vertical pipe with horizontal consequences. A third-floor leak is a first-floor morning.

The droplet-trace diagrams on the service and first-hour pages are the static version of this. Four sources: bath, kitchen, roof, basement. Each has a hidden list.

This is why 'it is only a little water' is not a measurement. Measurement is a meter at a marked point.

Metro Vancouver service:structural drying·published rates