Water under a slab floor.

If a supply line, a hose, or a valve is releasing water, the main shutoff is the move that matters. It is usually at the meter or where the line enters the house. Turn it clockwise. A valve under one sink helps only when you are sure the break is on that one fixture. If you cannot reach the shutoff without stepping through standing water near outlets or the breaker panel, do not. Call.

After the main is off, open a faucet so the lines can drain, starting low in the house. If the water heater may have emptied, turn it off so it is not heating a dry tank. Do not guess at a gas valve. Stay out of the water if you cannot see the floor and you do not know whether power is involved.

A lot of Houston houses sit on a concrete slab. There is no basement to look into and no crawlspace that shows you a wet joist. Water from a washing-machine hose, an ice-maker line, a toilet supply, a water heater, or a pinhole in a line inside a wall leaves the room at floor level. It runs under vinyl, under laminate, under tile, and under wood. The surface you walk on can look almost ordinary while the edges cup, the seams swell, or the baseboard darkens a day later.

The wall is the other record. Gypsum wicks. The paint a few inches up from the floor blisters or stains. Cabinets on particle board swell at the toe kick first. Trim swells at the miter. Those are signs the water did not stay in the puddle you mopped. They are also easy to paint over and then discover again.

On a one-story plan in Katy, Spring Branch, or Alief, that path is flat and it can cross a hallway before anyone notices the far room. In a two-story house the same supply break is usually on the floor where the line failed, not a mystery from above, unless the line was in a wall that also wet the ceiling below. Read the stain. Do not assume the room with the loudest drip is the only room.

Move people and pets out of standing water. Move small belongings that will be ruined if they stay, after a photo if you can take one without delaying the shutoff. Leave flooring, baseboard, and wet drywall in place until they are photographed, unless they are a safety problem. A camera roll of the wet room, the failed line if you can see it, and the path across the floor is the start of the record.

• Wide shot of each wet room, including rooms that only look slightly affected.
• Close shot of the supply, the hose, or the valve that failed, if it is visible.
• The bottom of the walls and the inside of the sink cabinet or the water-heater closet.
• A note of the time you shut the water off, and whether any water was still arriving after that.

Your insurer decides coverage. We do not. Many policies expect you to limit further damage and to keep a record. Yours may say that differently. Ask the insurer what they want saved before you throw wet materials away. If you need a room-by-room packet, the photo log on this site walks that order.

Towels and a household fan can handle a cup of water on intact hard flooring that you caught as it happened and that never reached the wall or the layers under the floor. They are not a drying plan once water has gone under a floor, into a cabinet box, or up the face of the drywall. Leave the windows closed. Outside air here is often wetter than the air in a shut room.

Mitigation is extraction of what is still standing, air movement, and dehumidification, with meters on the materials that actually got wet. A slab does not show you a joist bay. The readings are on the floor covering, the subfloor where there is one, and the wall. We do not put a clock on mold. What we do say is that wet paper, wet pad, and wet particle board do not improve while the house stays closed up and humid. A musty smell in a room that “looks dry” is a reason to find the material, not a reason to mask it.

Bleach on a baseboard does not dry the wall cavity. Primer on a stain hides the clue. New flooring on a wet slab repeats the loss. The rebuild of drywall, trim, cabinets, and floor starts when the structure is dry, not when the surface looks acceptable in the afternoon light.

Cabinets at the toe kick, drywall at the bottom of the wall, and the floor covering are the three places a slab release shows up. Hardwood cups. Laminate swells at the joints until the edges stand proud. Vinyl can hide water and then loosen. Tile can look fine while the setting bed or the wall behind the base is wet. Insulation, if the water reached a wall that has it, holds water after the face of the drywall feels dry to your hand.

How much comes out is a measurement, not a guess from the size of the original puddle. A line that ran for a short time across sealed concrete and was stopped immediately is a different job from a line that ran overnight under a floating floor and up the walls of two rooms. We would rather open a small area and confirm it is dry than close a wet wall and repaint it.

Call the company that wrote the policy when you reasonably can. Ask how they want notice, and whether an adjuster should see the damage before permanent repairs. Write down the claim number. Notice timing is in your policy. It is not the same on every Texas form, so we do not quote a number of days.

A public adjuster is a separate license, someone a homeowner can hire to represent them with the insurance company. Elite Restorations is not a public adjuster. We photograph, dry, and rebuild finishes. We do not negotiate the claim, and we do not tell you what the policy owes. If the loss also opened a roof or you are not sure the water was only the supply line, say so. A roof leak and a supply break are different paths, and both can wet the same slab.

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Call (713) 909-0034 if the water is still out or you are not sure how far it went. Elite Restorations is family-owned, at 511 Crestwater Ct, Houston, TX 77082, and has worked on Houston houses since 1993. We find the wet materials, dry what can be dried, and rebuild the drywall, trim, and floors when the readings support it.