Water under carpet, wood or laminate. It will not dry from above.
Carpet pad and subfloor hold water for days; the EPA's 24 to 48 hour drying window is the whole game here.
What is probably happening
- Water ran under the flooring at a seam, a door threshold or the edge of the room and is sitting on the subfloor.
- Cupped or crowning wood boards, a laminate seam that has lifted, or carpet that squelches at the edge are the signs.
- The EPA notes absorbent or porous materials such as carpet may have to be thrown away if they become moldy. Pad almost always goes.
Do this in the next five minutes
- Pull carpet back from the wall at the wettest corner and look at the pad and subfloor.
- Get air moving: fans across the floor, dehumidifier in the room, doors open.
- Move furniture off the wet area. Put foil or plastic under the legs of anything that has to stay.
- Do not walk on wet laminate more than you have to; it swells at the seams.
- Photograph the flooring before anything is lifted.
- Call a restoration company today. This is what their extraction and drying mats are for.
Do not
- Do not shampoo the carpet and hope. It adds water.
- Do not seal or refinish wood until it has been metered dry. It can take weeks.
- Do not accept 'we will just dry it from the top' for laminate or engineered wood over a wet subfloor.
Who to call
A water damage restoration company
Extraction, lifting the pad, drying mats on wood and daily moisture readings are restoration work. There is no pipe to fix at this point.
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What it should cost
$200 to $3,000
Water-damaged flooring repair range, on top of the drying itself (typical restoration $1,383 to $6,369).
Source: Angi, water damage restoration cost, updated September 2026. View source
National published range, not a quote for your job. The full cost table for this trade is on the water damage page.
Ask this contractor, on the phone, before anyone comes out
Tap each one as you ask it.
- Will you pull the pad, or dry the carpet in place, and why?
- For wood: will you use drying mats and meter the boards daily until they are within range of a dry board elsewhere?
- Which class of water loss (how much of the room is wet) are you assigning under S500?
- Will you leave a moisture log I can give the insurer?
End the call if
- A floor replacement quote before anyone has metered the subfloor.
- Equipment set for one day and then pulled with no readings.
- A large deposit up front.