After mitigation wraps up, the house usually looks worse than it did on the day the leak started. Putting it back is restoration, and it is a different job from the cleanup.
Our referral line links Savannah homeowners with independent, licensed and insured contractors who handle the rebuild from drywall to paint. You get a written, line-itemed scope before anyone picks up a hammer.
Restoration is drywall, trim and flooring work done on a house that just got soaked. The independent pros in our network do that kind of work every week in Savannah.
The rebuild contractor you reach through our line is an independent local outfit with its own license and insurance. Ask to see the insurance certificate before work starts, and any solid contractor will hand it over.
You get a written estimate itemized down to square feet of board, linear feet of base and shoe, and labor hours. Many write it in the line-item style adjusters already use, which cuts the back and forth on the claim.
A rebuild is rarely a 2 a.m. emergency, but waiting weeks for a bid stalls the whole claim. The dispatcher sets a real walkthrough window on the call with a contractor based close to Savannah.
The restoration side runs on texture sprayers, taping knives, miter saws and profile gauges, not fans. That gear and some patience are what make a patched wall look like it was never cut.
Each job follows the scope of loss: a written list of every material that came out during mitigation and has to go back in.
Flood cuts get closed with new board, then tape, three coats of mud and sanding. The real skill is the texture, getting orange peel or knockdown to disappear into the original wall.
MDF base that drank up water stays swollen, so it gets pulled and replaced with the same profile. Cabinet toe-kicks, and sometimes the sink base itself, get the same treatment after a kitchen leak.
LVP and laminate are usually replaced because water stays trapped under the locking joints. Solid hardwood caught early can often be sanded and refinished; engineered planks rarely come back.
The crew cuts a small chip from a dry wall and has the paint store scan it for a match. Repainting full walls to the corners avoids the shiny halo you get from spot painting.
Contents can be boxed, listed and stored off-site so the crew has open rooms to work in. That inventory also backs up the contents side of your insurance claim.
Before and after photos, the scope, the mitigation drying records and the final invoice go into one file. A complete file usually means fewer re-inspections and fewer arguments over supplements.
Mitigation is the emergency half: stop the water, extract it, tear out what cannot be dried and run equipment until the readings hit dry standard. What comes after is restoration, and the work looks a lot more like a remodel than an emergency call.
Take a dishwasher supply line that dripped under the cabinets for days before anyone noticed. The dry-out crew pulls the toe-kicks, drills or opens the cabinet bases and dries the subfloor. Restoration means sourcing a toe-kick that matches, swapping a swollen sink base and blending new flooring into the old at the doorway.
Or think about an upstairs toilet that overflowed and rained down through the kitchen ceiling. After the wet ceiling drywall is cut out and the joists dry, someone still has to hang board overhead, match the texture and paint the full ceiling plane.
A crew that is fast and fearless with a reciprocating saw is not always the crew you want taping your living room.
Some companies do both halves and many do just one. Ask outright whether the rebuild is part of the job, and get that answer in writing.
The process has four steps, and the first is a short phone call.
Tell the dispatcher what was removed during mitigation and whether you have an open claim. We route you to an independent local rebuild contractor and lock in a walkthrough time on the same call.
Your contractor checks every affected room with a meter first, because closing up a wet wall is the most expensive mistake in this trade.
You get a written scope with every line item: drywall, trim, flooring, paint, cabinet work and contents handling. Many contractors submit it to the adjuster and add a supplement if more damage shows up behind a wall.
At the end you walk every room with the contractor and write down anything that does not look right. Nothing gets signed until the punch list is done, and any workmanship warranty should be on paper.
Our dishwasher line leaked under the cabinets for days. When the drying crew left, the sink base was swollen and the toe-kicks were sitting in the garage. The referral line put me in touch with a local contractor who matched the cabinet toe-kicks and talked to our adjuster so I was not stuck in the middle.
Our kids clogged the upstairs toilet, it overflowed, and the kitchen ceiling ended up with a hole the size of a door. The contractor from the referral line matched our knockdown texture and repainted the full ceiling. You cannot tell where the hole was.
I was sure the oak floor in our hallway was a total loss. The contractor I reached through the referral service checked the boards, said they were solid oak and dry, and refinished them rather than replacing them. Honestly the floor looks better now than before the leak.
I own a duplex and the tenant was living out of two rooms while the rest sat gutted. The local contractor I was connected with wrote a scope the adjuster barely changed, and the trim and paint matched the untouched rooms.
Call now and a dispatcher will connect you with an independent rebuild contractor near Savannah.
Mitigation is the emergency work that keeps damage from growing: water removal, tear-out, antimicrobial and drying. Restoration puts the house back: drywall, texture, trim, flooring, cabinets and paint.
Adjusters often see them as two estimates on one claim, sometimes from two different contractors.
That comes down to scope: one room of board and paint goes quickly, but a kitchen with cabinets and flooring takes much longer. Most of the waiting is on material orders and adjuster approval, not labor.
Ask your contractor for a written schedule with the order of trades.
In most cases yes. Insurers may suggest a preferred vendor, but the homeowner usually gets to choose who works on the house. Check your own policy and confirm with your adjuster before you sign a contract.
Many contractors in our network work directly with adjusters and write estimates in the format insurers expect.
Often, if they are solid hardwood and were dried quickly. Mild cupping can settle once the moisture content comes back to normal. The contractor checks readings over several days before deciding to sand and refinish.
Boards that have crowned, split or lifted, and most engineered planks, usually have to be replaced.
A careful contractor tests the texture on scrap and paints whole walls to the corners so the repair blends in. Paint is matched from a chip of the existing wall, not from a guess at the color name.
Ask to see the texture sample before it goes on the wall, and walk the room in daylight before sign-off.
The independent pros in our network are local, which means they know the houses around Savannah and how the permit desk works.
Older houses close to downtown Savannah often have plaster and real wood trim, which take more work to match. Newer subdivisions mean builder-grade drywall, MDF base and LVP that are easier to source but quick to swell.
Tell us what came out and we will connect you with a local contractor.
Call +1-877-637-9008