Water damage restoration in Bellingham

A typical visit, start to finish

Say a supply line under an upstairs bathroom sink in Cordata lets go on a Saturday. Here is roughly how the restoration side unfolds.

1. Source. The crew confirms the line is shut off and points you to a plumber for the repair. Fixing pipes is not usually their job; the soaked house is.
2. Extraction. Truck-mounted or portable vacuums pull water out of carpet and off the subfloor. Fixr prices this step at $3.75 to $7.50 per square foot.
3. Mapping. A tech runs a meter along the walls and floors downstairs as well as up, because water follows gravity through the ceiling and spreads under vinyl plank farther than the stain suggests.
4. Selective tear-out. Saturated pad comes up. If the drywall stayed wet, the bottom foot or two is cut off (a flood cut) so air can reach inside the wall.
5. Drying. Air movers and dehumidifiers run while the tech logs readings every day until the wet spots match dry material elsewhere in the house.
6. Handoff. Some companies rebuild; others give you the readings and leave. Settle which before you sign. The repair side.

What sends Bellingham houses into this

River floods get the headlines, but in town the water nearly always starts indoors. Rain works on a house slowly. The airport averages 33.8 inches a year (1991-2020), modest by Northwest standards, with about 69 percent arriving October through March and 20 wet days in an average December. That long soak is what finds a tired roof valley, a clogged gutter over the foundation or a crawl space with no vapor barrier.

The bigger spikes come with cold. A few times a winter, arctic air drains south out of the Fraser Valley. Over 2016-2025 the airport saw 5.3 nights a year at 20°F or below, and January 2024 bottomed out at 3°F. The Bellingham Herald reported almost 100 frozen pipe calls to city crews and firefighters within days. Most of those pipes leaked on the warm day after. Frozen and burst pipes.

Our winter air is also bad at drying. Outdoor air in December is cold and already damp, so cracking the windows adds moisture to the house. Crews here shut the house, keep the heat on and let the dehumidifiers do the pulling, which takes a little longer than the same job in a dry climate.

Published prices

What	National figure	Who published it
Whole job, Fixr	$1,200 to $5,000; average $3,000	Fixr, Jan 2025
Whole job, Bob Vila	$1,305 to $5,707; average $3,455	Bob Vila, May 2023
Clean supply water, per sq ft	$3.75 to $4.25	Fixr
Gray water from a washer or dishwasher, per sq ft	$4.10 to $6.50	Fixr
Black water from sewage or a river, per sq ft	$7 to $7.50	Fixr
A bathroom	$500 to $4,500	Fixr
A kitchen	$1,750 to $8,000	Fixr

These are national numbers, not a Whatcom County quote. All the cost figures in one place.

The form on the clipboard

Expect paperwork before the first fan goes down. A basic work authorization just gives permission to start. Longer versions can hand your insurance benefits to the company, or leave you owing anything the insurer declines. Questions worth asking on the spot:

• Does this form assign my benefits, or tell my insurer to pay you directly?
• Is drying billed per machine per day, and what reading ends it?
• Will I get a copy of each day's readings and the photos?
• Who does the rebuild, and what is your Washington L&I registration number?

Will insurance cover it?

A pipe that bursts or a water heater that fails without warning is the textbook covered loss on a homeowners policy. Surface water or a river coming in from outside falls under flood insurance instead. Damage from a drip that went on for months is frequently excluded as maintenance. Insurance claims in Washington.