The first 24 hours after water damage in a commercial building
A burst pipe above a tenancy, a failed hot water unit in a plant room, storm water through a loading dock. However it starts, the first 24 hours after a commercial water event decide most of what follows: how far the water travels, whether mould gets a foothold, how smoothly the insurance claim runs, and how long the affected areas stay out of action.
This guide sets out what property managers and facility managers should do in that first day, in the order we recommend doing it. None of it requires specialist equipment. It does require moving quickly and writing things down.
1. Make the area safe before anything else
Water and occupied buildings are a bad mix, so safety comes before salvage. Keep staff, tenants and the public out of affected areas. Wet hard floors are a slip hazard, and saturated ceiling tiles or plasterboard can fall without much warning.
If water has reached power points, floor boxes, switchboards or equipment, have the circuits for the affected areas isolated by someone qualified to do so. Do not wade through standing water in a room where the power is still on. If the water may contain sewage or has entered from outside (rising storm water, for example), treat it as contaminated and keep people away from it entirely.
2. Stop the water and limit the spread
Find the source and shut it off. That might mean the isolation valve for a tenancy, the main for a floor, or arranging an emergency plumber if the failure is inside a wall or riser. Building management systems and after-hours contractors both have a role here, and the sooner the flow stops, the smaller the job becomes.
Once the source is controlled, slow the spread where you safely can. Move stock, records and furniture out of the wet zone, and block doorways with towels or absorbent socks if water is migrating towards lifts, risers or neighbouring tenancies. Water follows gravity and will find cable penetrations, expansion joints and stair voids, so assume it has travelled further than you can see.
3. Document everything before cleanup starts
Before anyone starts mopping, take photographs and video. Capture the source of the water, the extent of the affected area, damaged stock and equipment, and anything that shows how high the water reached. Note the time the event was discovered, the time the water was stopped, and who attended.
This record matters more than most people expect. Insurers assess claims on evidence, and the condition of the site before cleanup is the hardest thing to reconstruct afterwards. A few minutes of photos taken on a phone can save weeks of back and forth later.
4. Notify your insurer and stakeholders early
Lodge the claim or at least notify the insurer or broker on the same day. Most policies require prompt notification, and early contact lets the insurer confirm what they need from you before work begins. Ask whether they require their own assessor to attend before non-emergency works start; emergency mitigation such as water extraction and drying is generally expected to begin immediately to limit further damage.
At the same time, brief the people who will otherwise be calling you: owners, owners corporation or strata managers, affected tenants, and any head contractor on site. A short, factual update with photos does the job. Clear communication in the first day sets the tone for the whole restoration.
5. Get extraction and drying under way
Standing water needs to come out as soon as possible, and wet building materials need managed drying, not just open windows and a couple of pedestal fans. Guidance from bodies such as the US EPA recommends drying water-damaged materials within 24 to 48 hours, because mould can begin establishing within that window. Carpet, underlay, plasterboard, insulation and timber all hold moisture long after the surface feels dry.
A professional restorer will extract standing water, map the moisture with meters rather than guesswork, stage air movers and dehumidifiers, and return to record drying progress until readings are back to normal levels. Our water extraction and structural drying pages explain what that looks like on a commercial site.
6. Keep the paper trail going
Through the drying period, keep every record in one place: the initial photos, the restorer's moisture readings and equipment logs, invoices for emergency trades, and notes of conversations with the insurer. If areas were closed, record when and why, and when they reopened. For strata and multi-tenancy buildings, keep the record per unit or per zone so each stakeholder can be answered individually.
The short version: make it safe, stop the water, photograph everything, tell the insurer, start professional drying within the first day, and write everything down. Slow responses cost more than fast ones, in dollars and in downtime.
Where Floodrest fits in
Floodrest handles commercial water events across Melbourne and Sydney for property managers, facility managers and strata. We are operated by Premrest (Premier Restorations Group Pty Ltd), an IICRC Certified Firm, and our technicians work to the IICRC S500 standard for professional water damage restoration. Every job comes with the documentation described above: photos, moisture readings, equipment logs and cause notes, formatted so you can hand them straight to an insurer or owners corporation.
If your site is wet right now, call (03) 7035 0623. If you are planning ahead, our guide to water damage categories and classes explains how restorers scope this work.