What to do in the first 24 hours after a commercial flood: 10 steps.

Commercial floods rarely happen at a convenient time. A pipe lets go above level six on a Sunday night, a roof drain blocks in a storm, or a tenant's tap runs over a long weekend. By Monday morning the water has travelled further than it looks.

What happens in the first day decides most of the cost. If water sits for a day or two before extraction and drying start, a job that could have been restoration often becomes replacement. These are the ten things we'd want every facility manager to do, roughly in this order.

1. Make the area safe

Keep people out of the wet area. Water and electricity are the first risk, so if water has reached power points, floor boxes or equipment, have power isolated by someone qualified before anyone walks through. Wet hard floors and lifted carpet are also slip and trip hazards, so cordon them off.

2. Stop the water at the source

Isolate the water supply to the burst pipe or fixture, or call the building's plumber if you can't find the isolation point. For roof or storm ingress, get the leak covered or diverted. Extraction can't keep up with water that is still coming in.

3. Call a restoration contractor early

Call before you've worked out how bad it is. The sooner extraction starts, the more of the floor can be saved, and an experienced crew will tell you quickly what is and isn't worth saving. Premrest takes commercial flood calls 24/7 on 1300 207 915. Response can be as little as an hour, depending on location and crew availability, and we'll confirm timing when you call.

4. Photograph everything before it moves

Take wide photos of each affected area and close-ups of the source, water lines on walls, wet carpet and damaged stock or furniture. Insurers and landlords will ask for these, and once extraction starts the scene changes fast.

5. Tell the right people

Notify your insurer, the building owner or landlord, and any tenants on affected floors or the floors below. Water runs downhill through risers, ceiling spaces and service penetrations, so check the level underneath even if nobody has reported anything.

6. Work out what kind of water it is

Not all water is equal. Under IICRC S500, clean water from a supply line is Category 1. Water from a dishwasher, washing machine or overflow with some contamination is Category 2. Sewage, rising floodwater and long-standing water are Category 3. The category decides whether carpet and underlay can be restored, and what protective gear the crew needs. We classify the water category and damage class on arrival.

7. Get things off the wet floor

Move files, electronics, stock and anything made of paper or cardboard. Lift furniture onto blocks or foil where you can, because metal legs leave rust marks and timber furniture can bleed dye into wet carpet. Both are much harder to fix than the water itself.

8. Don't rely on fans and open windows

Surface-dry is not dry. Carpet can feel dry on top while the underlay and subfloor are still holding water, and that trapped moisture causes delamination, odour and mould. Proper drying uses extraction, air movers and dehumidifiers, with moisture readings taken over time until they say the floor is dry.

9. Don't rip up the carpet yet

It's tempting to start pulling up wet carpet, but that call should be made on the water category and moisture readings, not on how it looks at midnight. Clean-water carpet that is extracted and dried quickly can often be saved. Once removed, it can't. Because we also repair and replace floors, the restore-or-replace decision sits in the same work order. There's more on that in our article on commercial flood restoration.

10. Ask for the drying report

When the job is done you should get a close-out report showing the water category and damage class, moisture readings over time, drying times, equipment used, photos and the reasoning behind any restore-or-replace call. That pack is what insurers and facility teams actually use, so ask for it up front.

If there's one thing to take from this list, it's that time matters more than anything else. Most of the expensive outcomes we see, from replaced carpet and lifted vinyl to mould behind skirtings, come from water that was left to sit.