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Yes. We run a 24/7 emergency response across Brisbane, Ipswich and Logan, including nights, weekends and public holidays, because water damage gets worse by the hour and Brisbane's humidity gives mould a head start within 24 to 48 hours. Typical travel time is 45 to 75 minutes depending on where you are and the time of day, and active water, sewage and multi-unit jobs go to the front of the queue. When you call, we ask a few questions about the source and the water category so the crew arrives with the right extraction and drying gear on the truck.

Stop the water first: turn off the isolation tap under the sink or vanity, or the main at the meter if you cannot find the source, and switch off the hot water system if it is the cause. Turn off power to affected rooms at the switchboard if water is anywhere near outlets. Move furniture and rugs off wet carpet and put foil or blocks under the legs of anything you cannot move. Photograph everything before you touch it for the insurer. Do not use a household vacuum on water and do not try to dry Category 3 water yourself. Then call us and we will talk you through the rest.

Faster than most people expect. In Brisbane's summer humidity, often 70 to 80 per cent, wet gyprock and timber can start growing mould within 24 to 48 hours, and particleboard flooring in newer estate homes swells within hours and does not recover once saturated. Clean water that sits for more than a day or two also degrades to Category 2 as it picks up bacteria from carpet and building materials. That is why we treat a burst flexi hose on a Saturday night as an emergency rather than a Monday job: extraction and drying in the first 24 hours is the difference between a dry-out and a strip-out.

Yes. Creek, river and sewer water is Category 3, or black water, under the IICRC S500 standard. It carries sewage, chemicals, silt and whatever it picked up on the way, and it contaminates everything porous it touches. Do not wade through it without protection, do not run fans that will spread it into the air, and keep children and pets out of the affected rooms. The right approach is extraction, removal of contaminated carpet, underlay and lower wall linings, antimicrobial treatment of the frame and hard surfaces, then structural drying. We handle this as a sewage cleanup and sanitisation job with proper protective equipment and disposal.

Three to five days is typical for a clean-water job across a few rooms, once the standing water is extracted. Larger events, slab-on-ground homes and timber floors can take a week or more. The drying is done with air movers to pull moisture off surfaces and LGR dehumidifiers to take it out of the air, and we measure progress daily with moisture meters and a hygrometer rather than judging by touch. The job is finished when the readings match a dry reference area in the same house, not when the carpet feels dry, because moisture inside the bottom plates and under the slab lags well behind the surface.

Often, if the water is clean and we get to it quickly. Queenslander hardwood floors are very forgiving: with the subfloor opened for airflow and controlled drying they usually come back flat without warping, though cupping in the first days is normal and settles. Carpet from a clean-water leak can generally be dried in place, but underlay is nearly always replaced. Laminate, particleboard and engineered floors are different; they swell and delaminate and are usually replaced rather than dried. Anything soaked by grey or black water, including carpet and underlay, is removed regardless of type. We tell you what is worth saving after moisture mapping, not before.

Structural drying equipment is $80 to $150 per unit per day for air movers and LGR dehumidifiers, and a typical two-room clean-water job runs three to five units for three to five days. The rate includes delivery, set-up, daily monitoring visits with moisture readings and a drying log, and removal when the readings come down to the target. Wet floor drying for timber, laminate or tile subfloors is $400 to $1,500 per area on top of that, because it involves lifting boards, injecting air into the subfloor and more careful monitoring. We do not leave equipment running longer than the meters say it needs to.

Mould needs moisture, a food source and warmth, and Brisbane provides all three. Summer relative humidity often sits at 70 to 80 per cent, temperatures stay in the mould-friendly range day and night, and gyprock paper, timber and carpet underlay are exactly what it feeds on. Under those conditions spores that are always present in the air can colonise a wet wall within 24 to 48 hours. That is why we start drying immediately rather than waiting for an assessor, and why we treat wet materials with antimicrobial as we go. Once a colony is established it is a remediation job under the S520 standard rather than a straightforward dry-out.

We follow the IICRC S520 standard. First we find and fix the moisture source, because mould treated while the material is still wet comes straight back. Then we contain the area with plastic sheeting and negative air to stop spores spreading through the house, remove porous materials that cannot be cleaned such as affected gyprock, insulation and underlay, and HEPA vacuum and treat the framing and hard surfaces with antimicrobial. Structural drying follows until the readings are back to normal. Painting over mould or wiping it with bleach does not fix it, and both are common reasons we get called to a house months after someone else treated it.

Usually yes for a contained area, because the work zone is sealed and under negative air, so spores are being pulled out through HEPA filtration rather than into the rest of the house. We ask that you keep out of the contained rooms until clearance. If the mould is widespread, if anyone in the house has asthma, a respiratory condition or a weakened immune system, or if the affected rooms are the bedrooms and kitchen, staying elsewhere for a few days is the sensible option and is often covered as temporary accommodation on an insurance claim. We tell you honestly which situation you are in after the assessment.