Reading under the cabinets
Water from a kitchen or laundry leak runs along the slab under toe kicks and cabinet bases, where nothing shows on the surface. Meters and a moisture camera find how far it went before any flooring comes up.
Appliance Leak Water Damage
A washing machine hose, a dishwasher, an ice maker line or a water heater tank can put out more water in an afternoon than most people expect, and it usually goes under cabinets and flooring before anyone sees a drop. Austin Restoration Pros cleans up after it, dries what is underneath and puts the finishes back.
- 24/7 Emergency Response
- Upfront Quotes
- Drying & Repairs
Signs an Appliance Is Leaking
- A damp patch or dark line at the front of the kitchen kick board
- Flooring cupping or lifting in front of the dishwasher or fridge
- Carpet wet at a laundry wall, sometimes in the room behind it
- A rusty ring, a drip trail or standing water under the water heater
- A warm, musty smell from a laundry closet or a cabinet
- The ceiling below an upstairs laundry showing a stain
Shut the supply valve to that appliance if you can reach it and it turns, or the main valve at the meter box near the curb if you cannot. Unplug the appliance only if the plug and your hands are dry and the floor around it is not wet, and stay off standing water near outlets. Leave a water heater alone beyond turning off its supply; hot water and a pressurized tank are not worth the risk.
What the Service Includes
Repairing or replacing the appliance itself is not our work. Everything the water soaked into is.
Opening up the trapped spots
Cabinet kicks are drilled or removed so air reaches the void behind them, wet flooring and pad are lifted where they cannot be dried in place, and the bottom of soaked drywall comes out so the wall cavity can dry.
Drying and reinstating
Air movers and dehumidifiers run until readings match a dry part of the room, then flooring, kick boards, drywall, trim and paint go back to the scope you approved before the work started.
Where These Leaks Start
Rubber washing machine hoses harden and split, usually at the connection and usually while nobody is home. Dishwashers leak at the door seal or the drain connection and soak the cabinet run either side. Ice maker and filtered water lines behind a refrigerator are thin, easy to crimp when the fridge is pushed back, and drip for weeks. Water heaters rust through at the bottom of the tank and let go all at once, which in an Austin house often means a garage, a hall closet or an attic platform right above a bedroom ceiling. Hard water across Central Texas does not help any of it, and none of these leaks announce themselves early.
Once the water is off, the job runs like any other clean-water loss: extraction first if there is standing water, then structural drying. A supply line that split inside a wall is covered on the burst pipe page, a leak that came through a ceiling from above is on the roof and ceiling leak page, and whether wet flooring and cabinets are dried or replaced is set out in our restore-or-replace comparison.
Austin Restoration Pros covers Austin and nearby towns such as Round Rock, where upstairs laundry rooms send water through two floors at once. See the full service area or how to request a visit.
Appliance Leak Questions
Do you repair or replace the appliance?
No. Austin Restoration Pros deals with the water and the building. The appliance is for an appliance technician, a plumber or a replacement, and whichever it is needs to happen before drying starts so the equipment is not working against a live leak.
The floor looks dry now, so is there anything to do?
Often, yes. Tile and sealed wood dry on the surface long before the subfloor, the cabinet void and the wall base do, and that is exactly where growth starts a couple of days later. A moisture check tells you whether there is a job here at all, and if there is not, that is a short visit.
What affects the cost of appliance leak cleanup?
How long it ran before it was found, how far it traveled under cabinets and flooring, whether it went through a ceiling to the floor below, and how much has to be removed rather than dried. A hose that burst while someone was home is a much smaller job than one found after a weekend away.
Will the kitchen cabinets have to come out?
Not usually. Kick boards often come off and cabinet bases can be dried in place with vents and directed air, which is far cheaper than a new cabinet run. Particleboard bases that have already swollen are a different matter, and Austin Restoration Pros will show you the readings behind either answer before anything is removed.
Clean up an appliance leak in Austin
Tell us which appliance leaked and how long the water was running.