A water damage assessment is the record of the first visit to a water loss: where the water came from, whether it has stopped, how contaminated it is, how far it spread, what is unsafe, which materials are wet and how wet, and what the mitigation crew is going to do about it. Everything that follows — the drying, the invoice, the claim, any argument about mold six weeks later — leans on what was written down that first day. This form walks the job in the order you work it, keeps one row per room with its readings and photos, and lifts the answers that matter to an adjuster (Category 3 water, live power, a sagging ceiling, untested older materials) into a summary of findings. You can fill it in here and download a finished PDF without creating an account.
Why the first visit decides the claim
Water damage is the one loss where the evidence evaporates. By day three the carpet looks dry, the drywall has a faint tide line and the homeowner remembers the leak "starting on the weekend." If the first visit did not record the source, the time the water was found, the category, and a set of readings against a dry reference, there is very little left to show an adjuster why the pad came out or why six air movers ran for four days.
So a good assessment answers the questions the person paying for the job will ask: what happened, when, how bad was it, what was unsafe, what did you remove and why, and what did the customer agree to. Each of those has a place on this form, and each wet room has its own photos and readings.
Category and class, in plain terms
Most restorers and carriers describe a water loss with two labels. The category is about how dirty the water is: clean water from a supply line, grey water with some contamination such as a washing machine discharge, or black water such as sewage or rising floodwater. Category drives what can be saved — clean-water carpet can often be dried in place, while anything porous soaked in black water usually goes.
The class is about how much water there is to dry out, which drives the equipment. A small wet patch on a tile floor is a light load; a whole room with soaked carpet and water climbing the walls is heavier; wet ceilings and insulation are heavier still; and water held in hardwood, plaster or concrete needs a slower, specialty approach. The form records your call on both and, more importantly, why you made it. Water can also get worse with time: clean water that sat for several days, or ran through a dirty crawlspace, may not be clean any more.
Safety before anything comes out
Check the hazards before the first baseboard is pulled. Is power still on to outlets or cords sitting in water? Is a ceiling bellied with water, or a floor soft underfoot? Is the water carrying sewage, fuel or chemicals? Is there a gas appliance in the wet area? Is mold already growing? Each answer that is a problem becomes a finding on the report.
The question that is easiest to forget is the age of the building. Older homes can have asbestos in drywall joint compound, textured ceilings, vinyl flooring and pipe wrap, and lead in paint. Removing those without testing can turn a water job into a contamination job, so the form asks whether the materials you plan to remove might contain them and whether they have been tested.
One row per room, with readings you can defend
Each affected room gets its own row: the level, the materials that are wet, how high the water wicked up the walls, whether water is standing, the moisture readings you took, and a reading from the same material in a dry area for comparison. That dry reference is what makes a reading meaningful — "38" means nothing on its own, but "38 against a dry reference of 9" tells anyone reading the file that the wall is wet.
Readings are typed rather than forced into one unit, because pin and pinless meters, and their different scales, do not share one. Write the reading the way the meter showed it. Speak while you walk, and the document writes itself: say "kitchen, drywall behind the sink reads 42, dry reference 10, pad soaked, about an inch standing at the dishwasher" and the room, the reading and the photo land in the right row.
Scope, equipment and the customer's go-ahead
The last part records what you recommend: extraction, which materials come out (and how high the flood cuts go), containment, antimicrobial treatment, and how many air movers, dehumidifiers and air scrubbers are going in. The counts are typed, not calculated, so the form matches whatever placement method your company uses.
It ends with the customer: who authorized the work, whether any of it is on hold for the adjuster, and their signature. The form records that consent; it is not a contract, so attach your own work authorization if your company uses one.
Common questions
What should a water damage assessment include?
The job and claim details, the source of the water and whether it has stopped, when the water started, its category and class, a safety check, a room-by-room list of wet materials with moisture readings and photos, the area affected, any contents involved, the mitigation you recommend with equipment counts, and the customer's authorization.
What is the difference between water category and water class?
Category describes how contaminated the water is — clean, grey or black. Class describes how much water has to be dried out and how hard it will be, from a small wet area on hard surfaces up to water held in dense materials like hardwood, plaster or concrete. Category mostly decides what can be saved; class mostly decides the equipment.
Why record a dry reference reading?
A moisture reading only means something compared with the same material where it is dry. Taking a reference in an unaffected room gives you the target the wet material has to reach, and it shows an adjuster that the material was genuinely wet rather than reading high for some other reason.
Does this form work for insurance claims?
It records what an adjuster typically asks for — date of loss, source, category and class, readings, photos, what was removed and why, and the equipment placed. It does not replace your carrier's own paperwork or any estimating software; it is the field record those are built from.
What if mold is already visible on the first visit?
Record where it is and roughly how large, photograph it, and note it as a finding. Small areas are often cleaned as part of the mitigation; larger growth, or growth in a home with vulnerable occupants, may call for a separate mold assessment before work goes further.
Can I keep the daily drying readings on the same form?
Keep this form for the first visit and use the water damage drying log for the visits after it. The log has one row per reading, per air reading and per equipment change, each with its date, so the drying story reads in order from day one to the day the equipment comes out.