Licensed and Insured Independent Pros
You are connected with an independent, locally owned outfit that holds its own license and insurance. Ask at the door if you want to see the paperwork; good crews keep it in the truck.
When carpet squishes under your shoes, the pad below is holding gallons, and fans alone will take ages to pull it out. A proper extractor physically pulls that water out of carpet and pad, which is much faster than waiting for it to evaporate.
Our referral line connects St. Leo callers with independent, licensed and insured contractors who run truck-mounted and portable extractors. The crew quotes the job in writing before the wand touches the floor.

With extraction, the machine and the tool attachment do the heavy lifting, and the right combination saves days of drying.
You are connected with an independent, locally owned outfit that holds its own license and insurance. Ask at the door if you want to see the paperwork; good crews keep it in the truck.
Expect a written estimate listing square feet of carpet extracted, any pad disposal and equipment rental days. Many contractors bill the insurer directly once you have a claim number.
Wet pad starts to sour within a day or two, so speed matters more here than almost anywhere. The dispatcher confirms an actual arrival window with a nearby crew before you hang up.
Expect a truck-mounted extractor with serious vacuum lift, and portable units for upper floors and apartments. Stand-on and weighted tools press body weight into the carpet so the pad gives up its water, not only the top fibers.
Each gallon removed by the extractor is a gallon that never has to be evaporated and captured by a dehumidifier. Pulling water out as liquid is far quicker than waiting for fans to turn it into vapor. Leave it out and the drying phase stretches for days.
A shop vac falls short because it only pulls from the surface and has a fraction of the lift of a truck mount. It also never reaches the pad, and that is where most of the water is hiding. Folks run one all evening and still end up with carpet that squishes.
Think about an ice-maker line behind the fridge that leaked into the living room carpet overnight. Since the water is clean, the crew can often float the carpet, which means releasing it from the tack strip, removing the pad and extracting the carpet itself.
Laminate is trickier. In a rental apartment where water seeped under the planks, it hides in the foam underlayment and against the subfloor. Meters and specialty mats show how far it spread, and any planks with swollen edges usually have to come up.
Rule of thumb from the field: carpet in clean water can often be saved, but the pad underneath is usually thrown out and replaced. Pad is cheap; carpet is not.
Time matters too: clean water left sitting for days in a warm house picks up bacteria, which shrinks the list of what can be saved. That is one more reason to get the extractor in early.

Carpet, wood, laminate and upholstery all trap water in their own way, which is why the tool heads change room to room.

The crew makes slow overlapping passes with a weighted tool until the wand stops pulling water. The soaked pad is typically cut out and removed, with the carpet reinstalled after drying.
With clean water, crews often float the carpet: release it from the strip and blow air under it to dry it in place. This saves the carpet and keeps it out of the dumpster.
Flat panels sealed to the floor pull water up through the seams and out of the boards under vacuum. When caught early, it often stops solid hardwood from cupping.
Water slips under click-lock planks and sits on the subfloor where you cannot see it. Crews read moisture across the floor, pull planks where it is wet and extract the subfloor directly.
Sofas, chairs and rugs get extracted with smaller hand tools sized for fabric. Wool and handmade rugs usually get sent to a rug cleaning plant for full washing.
Once the water is out, the tech maps moisture across the floor and along the base of the walls. Those readings tell the crew where the drying equipment should go.
Tell the dispatcher what got wet, what flooring you have and where the water came from. We route you to the nearest independent extraction crew and give you an arrival window.
The crew pulls up with a truck mount or portable extractor, wands, weighted tools and moisture meters.
First the tech identifies the water source and category, measures the wet area and decides what stays, then puts the quote in writing.
After extraction, the tech takes final readings, sets drying equipment if needed and walks you through what was done.

Our ice-maker line leaked overnight and the whole living room carpet was soaked to the wall. The local contractor from the referral line pulled the wet pad, stood on some kind of weighted tool for an hour and kept our carpet. There was no musty smell later, which was my biggest worry.
Water from the hall closet in my apartment ran under the laminate before I noticed. The crew my landlord and I were connected with found it with a meter, pulled the wet planks and extracted the subfloor.
I spent three hours with my shop vac and the carpet still squished. The extractor the contractor brought pulled more water in a few minutes than I got in an evening.
The washer drain hose came loose and water ran under the hallway hardwood while we were at work. The contractor we reached through the referral line laid suction mats over the boards and ran them for most of the day. The boards cupped slightly, then settled flat again once everything was dry.
Often, if it got wet from a clean source like a supply line or ice-maker and is extracted quickly. The pad underneath is usually replaced because it holds water and odor.
Carpet soaked by sewage or outside floodwater is almost always removed.
A shop vac only pulls from the surface and has a fraction of the lift of a professional truck mount. Most of the water sits in the pad and subfloor, which a wet vac cannot reach.
Pros use weighted tools that press water out of the pad while the extractor pulls it away.
Extraction itself often takes a few hours for a typical room or two. The drying that follows is a separate step and usually runs a few days.
The crew will give you a time estimate after looking at the wet area.
It should not, as long as the wet pad comes out and the carpet is dried fast. Odor usually means water was left in the pad or subfloor too long.
You can ask the crew if an antimicrobial treatment makes sense for your floor.
Extraction physically pulls liquid water out of carpet, pad and floors with powerful vacuums and tools. Drying comes next, using dehumidifiers and air movers to remove the moisture that is left.
Good extraction makes drying much shorter.
Because the crews are based near St. Leo, the extraction truck does not have far to travel.
For upper-floor apartments and condos, crews bring portable units since a truck hose will not reach. Single-family homes and storefronts are usually handled with a truck mount parked in the driveway or lot.

A dispatcher will route you to a nearby extraction crew.
Call +1-877-637-9008The faster the pad and carpet are extracted, the more you save. Call now for a local crew.