Water Damage Restoration in Mobile, AL
Thirty-eight minutes on average from your call to a truck on your street. Tell us where you are and what's happening — or just ring (251) 555-0172, because we answer it at 3am.
- 38-minute average response
- IICRC WRT · ASD · AMRT
- No assignment of benefits
What to Do in the First Hour
The first hour changes what can be saved. None of this needs us and none of it costs anything — do it while you're waiting for the truck.
Kill the power to wet rooms — if you can reach the panel dry
If the panel itself is wet or you'd have to stand in water to reach it, stop and wait for us. Nothing in the house is worth that.
Photograph everything before you move anything
Wide shots of each room, then close-ups of damaged items with something for scale. This is the single most useful thing you can do for your own claim, and nobody can do it for you afterwards.
Find the source and shut it off
Main stopcock for a supply failure, the isolator under the appliance for a hose. For storm water there is nothing to shut off — move to step four.
Get furniture legs up off wet carpet
Aluminium foil or a block under each leg. Wood stain and metal rust bleed into carpet within hours and that mark does not come out.
Don't use a household vacuum on standing water
It isn't rated for it, and on a Category 2 or 3 loss you'd be aerosolising contamination through the machine's exhaust into the room you're standing in.
Leave the air conditioning running
On the Gulf Coast in August a closed-up wet house is a mould incubator. Cooler, drier air buys us hours — mould can start within 24 to 48 hours.
What We're Called Out For
One number, any hour. If it's actively flooding, ring rather than fill in a form.
We Don't Ask You to Sign Over Your Claim
An assignment of benefits hands your insurance claim to the contractor. They then negotiate with your insurer, in their interest, using your policy — and you find out how it went afterwards. It is legal, it is common, and we don't do it.
We bill you, you claim, and we sit in the room with your adjuster to explain what we did and why. Practically that means you keep control of your own claim and you can sack us at any point. It costs us the occasional job to say this out loud. We'll keep saying it.
- ✓No assignment of benefits, ever — you keep the claim
- ✓We meet your adjuster on site and walk them through the scope
- ✓Sudden and accidental water is covered; a gradual leak usually isn't
- ✓FLOOD is excluded from standard policies — that needs NFIP cover
Not All Water Is the Same Water
The category decides what can be dried and what has to go. It is not a judgement call and it is not negotiable — and it also gets worse with time, which is why the first hour matters.
Clean water — a supply line, a tank, rain
Drinkable at the source. Almost everything can be dried in place if we get to it quickly: carpet, pad, cabinetry, framing. Left for 48 hours it degrades to Category 2 on its own, which is the whole argument for calling immediately.
Grey water — appliances, toilet overflow, aquariums
Significant contamination. Carpet is usually salvageable, the pad underneath is not. Antimicrobial treatment on every surface that stays, and a longer drying programme.
Black water — sewage, ground surface water, flooding
Grossly contaminated. Every porous material it touched leaves the building — carpet, pad, drywall to a line above the tide mark, insulation, chipboard. Full containment, negative air, PPE and regulated disposal. Storm surge in Mobile Bay is Category 3 by definition.
Dry is a number, not a feeling
We take a moisture reading in unaffected material to set the target, then log every affected surface daily until it gets there. You get that log. It is also the reason our equipment comes out on day four instead of day nine — we can prove it is done rather than leaving fans running on your bill.
Houses We've Put Back
It's Almost Never the Flame That Ruins the House
A contained kitchen fire might blacken one wall. What actually decides whether you lose the contents is the smoke, and the clock started the moment it went out.
Soot is acidic. On brass, aluminium and finished surfaces it begins etching within days and the mark becomes permanent; on plastics it yellows and stays yellow. A protein fire — a pan left on — leaves almost no visible soot at all and a film on every surface in the house that smells for years if it is not chemically removed. That is why we turn up the morning after rather than after the claim is agreed.
- ✓Surface cleaning starts the next morning, not after the claim settles
- ✓Protein fires get chemical cleaning — there is nothing to wipe off
- ✓Thermal fogging and hydroxyl for odour that has gone into the structure
- ✓Contents inventoried and photographed before anything leaves the house
What Happens After You Call
Mitigation starts the same night. Reconstruction waits for your insurer; drying does not.
Call answered by a person
Not an answering service taking a message. Dispatch asks four questions and puts a crew on the road — 38 minutes on average across last year.
Stop it, then document it
Source isolated, standing water extracted, and the whole loss photographed and moisture-mapped before anything is moved. That map is what your adjuster works from.
Category, scope and a target number
We set the water category, tell you what has to go and what can be dried, and set the target moisture content we're drying to. All of it in writing that night.
Dry, logged daily
Air movers and dehumidifiers, readings taken and logged every morning. Equipment comes out when the number is hit, typically day three to five — not when the invoice looks right.
Put back
Drywall, flooring, cabinetry, paint. One firm from the flooded carpet to the final coat, so nobody gets to blame the previous trade.
What People Say the Week After
Called at ten past midnight with the ceiling coming down. A truck was on our street inside forty minutes. They were pulling water before I had finished ringing the insurer.
They handed me a moisture log every single morning with the target reading and where each room actually was. When it hit target the equipment came out. No mystery drying days on the invoice.
Two other firms wanted me to sign an assignment of benefits before they'd start. Cormont said no and dealt with my adjuster alongside me instead of instead of me. That is the whole reason I picked them.
The smoke was worse than the fire and I did not understand that until they explained soot is acidic and etches within days. They were in the house cleaning surfaces the next morning.
Questions at Two in the Morning
Should I call you or my insurer first?
Call us first if water is still moving — mitigation is your duty under the policy and delay is the one thing an insurer can genuinely push back on. Ring them once the water has stopped. We'll be documenting from the moment we arrive either way.
Will my insurance cover this?
Sudden and accidental water is normally covered — a burst pipe, a failed supply hose, a storm-damaged roof letting rain in. A leak that has been going quietly for months usually isn't. And FLOOD — water that came from outside and across the ground — is excluded from standard policies everywhere; that needs separate NFIP cover. On this coast that distinction is the whole game.
What is an assignment of benefits, and do you need one?
It signs your claim over to the contractor, who then negotiates with your insurer using your policy. We don't ask for one and we won't. You keep the claim, we bill you, and we'll stand in front of your adjuster and justify every line.
How long will the drying take?
Three to five days on most losses. We set a target moisture content from unaffected material and log every affected surface daily until it gets there, and you get a copy each morning. Equipment leaves when the number is hit.
Can you save the carpet? The cabinets? The photographs?
Category 1: usually all of it. Category 2: carpet often, the pad never. Category 3: nothing porous stays. Contents are a separate question — we pack out, inventory and clean off site, and we do not write things off because it would be quicker for us.
Do you actually answer at 3am?
Yes, and by a person on the dispatch desk rather than a call centre taking a message for the morning. Roughly a third of our callouts start between midnight and six.
If It's Still Wet, Ring — Don't Type
Dispatch is a person, not an answering service, at any hour of any day. Average 38 minutes to a truck on your street.
Tell Us Where You Are
If water is actively moving, please ring instead — the form is for the morning after, insurance questions and reconstruction.
- Visit us3450 Springhill Avenue, Mobile, AL 36608
- Call us(251) 555-0172
- Email usdispatch@cormontrestoration.com