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. Real extraction gear pulls water out of carpet, pad and floor seams far faster than any fan can dry it.
Our referral line connects St. Leo callers with independent, licensed and insured contractors who run truck-mounted and portable extractors. You get a written quote before the extraction wand ever hits the carpet.

Extraction is a pure equipment job: the power of the machine and the right tool head decide how much water comes out.
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.
The estimate spells out square footage extracted, pad removal if needed and any equipment left behind. 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. Weighted and stand-on tools put a person's body weight on the carpet so water is squeezed out of the pad, not just the 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. Skip that step and the drying phase drags on for days longer than it needs to.
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 cannot reach the pad, which is where most of the water sits. People run one for hours and still have carpet that squishes.
Take a refrigerator ice-maker line that leaked into wall-to-wall carpet overnight. That is clean water, so the crew may float the carpet: lift it off the tack strip, pull the soaked pad, extract the carpet in place and set drying underneath it.
Laminate is trickier. In a rental apartment where water seeped under the planks, it hides in the foam underlayment and against the subfloor. Extraction mats and meters show how far it traveled, and swollen boards usually come up.
Field rule: clean-water carpet is often saved, while the pad below is usually tossed. Pad costs little to replace compared to carpet.
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. It is one more reason to call for extraction right away.

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. Wet pad is usually cut out and bagged, then the carpet is relaid once dry.
For a clean-water leak, the crew can pull the carpet off the tack strip, slide air underneath and dry it in place. This saves the carpet and keeps it out of the dumpster.
Panel mats seal against the wood and draw water up from between the boards and out of the subfloor. Caught early, this can keep solid hardwood from cupping badly.
Water slips under click-lock planks and sits on the subfloor where you cannot see it. The crew maps the wet area with a meter, lifts planks where needed and extracts the subfloor below.
Furniture and rugs get treated with smaller upholstery tools made for fabric. Wool and handmade rugs often go out to a rug plant for proper washing and drying.
After extraction, the tech checks readings across the floor and up the walls to see where water wicked. Those readings tell the crew where the drying equipment should go.
Let the dispatcher know the flooring type, the size of the wet area and the source of the leak. We route you to the nearest independent extraction crew and give you an arrival window.
Expect extractors, tool heads, meters and hoses, plus a portable unit if you live upstairs.
The tech checks the water category, maps how far it spread and decides what can be saved before writing the quote.
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.
I rent an apartment and water came in under the laminate from the unit's water heater closet. 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 contractor showed up with a truck mount and got more out of that room in a few passes than I did all night.
Our dog knocked the line off the back of the washer and water ran under the hardwood in the hall before we got home. The crew from the referral service set vacuum mats across the wood and ran them for hours. The floor cupped a little and then flattened back out as it dried.
Usually, when the water was clean and the carpet was extracted within a day or so. The pad underneath is usually replaced because it holds water and odor.
If sewage or floodwater soaked it, the carpet generally has to go.
A shop vac only pulls from the surface and has a fraction of the lift of a professional truck mount. The pad and subfloor are where most water lives, and a wet vac does not get there.
Pros use weighted tools that press water out of the pad while the extractor pulls it away.
For one or two rooms, the extraction often wraps up in a few hours. The drying that follows is a separate step and usually runs a few days.
After checking the size of the wet area, the crew can tell you how long it should take.
Not if the pad is removed, the carpet is extracted thoroughly and it dries quickly. A smell usually means water stayed in the pad or subfloor for too long.
You can ask the crew if an antimicrobial treatment makes sense for your floor.
Extraction is the vacuum step that removes liquid water from carpet, pad and flooring. Drying comes next, using dehumidifiers and air movers to remove the moisture that is left.
Good extraction makes drying much shorter.
The extraction contractors we refer are local, so the truck mount is not hours away.
For upper-floor apartments and condos, crews bring portable units since a truck hose will not reach. Houses and small storefronts usually get a truck mount parked right outside.

Call and we will connect you with a local extraction crew.
Call +1-877-637-9008Quick extraction saves carpet and shortens drying. Call now to reach a local crew.