A family trade, not a franchise
Ray started doing restoration work in the Puget Sound the way it is supposed to be done — one house at a time, with his own hands and his own name on the truck.
Family owned · Alderwood Manor, Washington
“I answer the phone personally, 24/7. And I'm on site at every job.”
Ray has been pulling water out of Puget Sound homes for over 20 years. Absolute Water Damage is a locally owned and operated residential restoration company — no franchise, no call center, no handoff to a stranger.
- On site in an hour or less
- IICRC certified crews
- Based in Alderwood Manor, Washington
- We bill your insurance direct
What drives the company
Fast action isn't a slogan here. It's the whole business model.
The primary purpose of emergency service is to protect, preserve and secure the property from further damage. Water damage claims increase substantially if immediate action is not taken to contain the loss — so we move.
Our mission
Provide a hassle-free service and exceed the expectation of our clients. Regardless of how challenging a job is, our team handles it efficiently and cost effectively.
Our commitment
Professional storm, water and fire restoration that respects the time and budget the insurance company allocates — and we review their scope of work to make sure nothing needed to restore your property was left off it.
Northwest and green
We take pride in our Northwest heritage. We are an environmentally safe company using green products, safe around your family and pets.
Certified crews
Absolute IICRC-certified technicians use the latest products, procedures and equipment to deliver the highest level of remediation performance.
20+
Years restoring Puget Sound homes
< 60 min
Typical arrival, day or night
65+
Communities covered
24/7
Owner-answered phone line
Twenty years in one place
How Absolute Water Damage became the truck your neighbors call.
IICRC certification, all the way through
Every technician trained and certified to the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification standard, because homeowners deserve a documented standard, not opinions.
Alderwood Manor, Washington, 65+ communities
Trucks staged and loaded so a call at 3am gets equipment running inside the hour anywhere from Stanwood to Federal Way.
The owner still answers the phone
Twenty-plus years in and Ray has never handed the emergency line to a call center. If you call, you get him.
Ray's promise to you
“You get me. Not a call center, not a franchise, not a stranger.”
Absolute Water Damage has been family owned and locally operated for over 20+ years out of Alderwood Manor, Washington. When your phone call comes in at 2 am, it rings on Ray's personal cell — and he is the one who pulls into your driveway.
He will tell you honestly what has to come out and what can be dried in place. He will document every reading for your carrier. And he will not talk about money before your house is safe.
- Owner on site at every single job
- IICRC-certified technicians
- Xactimate insurance billing, direct to your carrier
- Green products, safe around kids and pets
(206) 856-3173Open 24 hours — every day of the year
20+
Years in the
Puget Sound
Meet the owner
“My name is Ray. When you call, you get my cell phone.”
Absolute Water Damage is family owned and locally operated — not a franchise with a call center in another state. Ray answers 24/7 and is on site at every job personally to guarantee the quality of the work.
Owner answers the phone
Call and you get Ray's cell — 24/7, holidays included. He is on site at every job personally.
On site in an hour or less
Emergency response across the Puget Sound. Water damage costs multiply by the hour.
IICRC-certified technicians
Trained to the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification standard.
We bill your insurance, not you
Xactimate pricing — the industry standard carriers use. In most cases we bill them directly.
20+ years, family owned
Locally owned and operated, serving Puget Sound homeowners since 2003.
Green products
Environmentally safe products, safe around kids and pets.
Real jobs, real photos
Seven moments from actual Absolute Water Damage calls.
Not stock photography. These are our trucks, our equipment and Ray on site — with the story of what was happening in the minutes around each photo.
5 days
before mold starts
The reading nobody wanted to take
“17.3. That ceiling is still soaking.”
This is the moment most homeowners never see. The leak had stopped days earlier and the stain looked dry to the touch — so the family assumed the worst was over. Ray put a meter on it anyway.
Seventeen point three. Wet enough that mold was already on the clock. We opened a small inspection cut, dried the cavity in place and the drywall never had to come down. That is what a two-minute reading buys you.
IICRC
certified protocol
Behind the plastic
The barrier that keeps one bad room from becoming five.
Category 3 water — sewage, black water, anything that has touched contamination — does not get treated like a spill. It gets isolated. Poly, tape, negative air, and a sign on the zipper.
Every tool that goes in gets decontaminated on the way out. Porous materials that cannot be saved are bagged and disposed of properly. The rest of your house never knows it happened.
< 60 min
typical arrival
Why the van matters
Equipment on the truck beats equipment on order.
There is a version of this business where a subcontractor is dispatched, an estimate is written, and the drying starts on day three. This is not that business.
Air movers, LGR dehumidifiers, truck-mount extraction, submersible pumps, infrared cameras and moisture meters ride in the van. Ray unloads it himself, usually within the hour, and the drying plan starts the same visit.
5–7 days
typical structural dry-out
Dry in place, whenever we can
The cheapest restoration is the demolition you never do.
Hardwood that gets water pulled off it in the first hours often stays. Hardwood that sits for two days cups, crowns and gets replaced. Speed is the whole game.
We extract until the wand comes back dry, set air movement across the grain, pull the humidity down with LGRs and take readings every day until every material hits dry standard — usually five to seven days.
24/7
owner answers, holidays too
The call at 11:47 pm
“Ray, the whole downstairs is under water.”
Nobody plans a water loss for a convenient hour. This photo was taken close to midnight, and the homeowner had been standing in her hallway for twenty minutes with a bath towel and no idea what to do next.
Ray talked her through shutting the main off while he was still driving. Extraction was running before 1 am. There is no answering service in the middle of that story — just the owner’s cell phone and a loaded van.
1 cut
instead of a full gut
What the flashlight found
The wet bay that would have cost them twice.
The visible damage was one small patch of drywall. The meter said otherwise. Ray pulled a single inspection cut and put a light into the cavity — the sill plate two bays over was saturated.
Had that wall been closed up on faith, the homeowner would have been looking at mold and a second claim by spring. Instead it dried in nine days and the adjuster had a photo of every reading.
Before & after
Two houses Ray was called into on their worst day.
Same homes, a week or two apart. No staging, no stock photography — just what a documented drying plan and a crew that shows up in the first hour actually produces.
7 days
water out to finished room
Lynnwood · supply line failure
Two inches of water on the floor Friday night. Family back in the room the next week.
A second-floor supply line let go while the homeowners were at dinner. Water came down through the ceiling and across the entire living room. When Ray walked in, the carpet was floating and the baseboards were already wicking.
- Truck-mount extraction started within 40 minutes of the call
- Ceiling opened only where readings demanded it — the rest dried in place
- Six air movers and two LGR dehumidifiers on a documented drying plan
- Daily moisture logs sent straight to the adjuster; claim approved without a fight
0
square feet unnecessarily gutted
Everett · long-term basement seepage
The basement nobody wanted to go into — cleared, sealed and handed back.
This one had been wet for months before anyone called. Microbial growth had spread across the framing and the smell hit you at the top of the stairs. Two other companies quoted a full gut.
- Containment and negative air before a single piece of material moved
- Antimicrobial treatment on every square inch of salvageable framing
- Non-salvageable porous material bagged and disposed of to IICRC standard
- Air quality and odor verified before the containment came down
What is on the truck
The equipment that decides whether your floors get saved.
Trucks stay loaded so nothing has to be picked up on the way to you. This is what rolls up to a Alderwood Manor, Washington driveway at 3am.
Truck-mount extraction
Pulls standing water out at volume so drying can actually start on day one.
LGR dehumidifiers
Low grain refrigerant units pull moisture out of the air, not just move it around your framing.
Air movers
Placed to a plan and angle, so evaporation happens where the readings say the water is.
Infrared cameras
See temperature differences behind walls so we open only what has to be opened.
Penetrating moisture meters
Numbers instead of guesses — logged daily and sent to your adjuster.
Hardwood floor drying mats
Pull water up from underneath boards so floors can often be saved instead of replaced.
Negative air and containment
Keeps contamination and dust inside the work area and out of the rest of your home.
Air scrubbers with HEPA
Cleans the air your family is breathing while the work is happening.
On camera
Watch what an hour-one response actually looks like.
Most restoration companies show you a finished room. We would rather show you the middle of the job, because that is where losses are either saved or lost.
Extraction in progress
Water coming off the floor while the meter still reads wet. The wand does not stop until it comes back dry.
Walking a live job
Ray on a Puget Sound loss — equipment placement, air movement and what the readings looked like that day.
Call Ray now
Or tell us what happened
Field notes
A loss, hour by hour, in Ray's own words.
Four photographs from real Alderwood Manor, Washington area jobs, and what was happening in the minutes around each one.
Hour oneThe wand does not stop until it comes back dry.
Most of the water you can save a floor from is gone in the first two hours. This is why Ray loads the extractor before he even knows what he is walking into — every minute of pumping is a board you do not replace.
Hour threeEvery stud bay gets a light and a meter on it.
Water travels sideways through framing and sill plates. If a bay reads wet and gets closed anyway, you are paying for the same repair twice next spring. So we check them one at a time and write the numbers down.
Contaminated lossesPlastic, tape, negative air, and a sign on the zipper.
Sewage and mold work is isolated before anything else happens. Tools get decontaminated on the way out. Your kitchen, your kids' rooms and your HVAC never meet what is behind that barrier.
Every jobThat is our van in your driveway — not a franchise sub.
Family owned for 20+ years. When you call the number on this page, the man who shows up is the man who answered. He unloads his own dehumidifiers and he is there when the readings hit dry standard.
Talk to Ray now
Every call goes to the owner's cell
On the job
Real crews, real equipment, real Puget Sound homes.
Every photo below is our own team on an actual loss — not stock footage of somebody else's trucks.
ExtractionArrivalMoisture readingDry-outInspectionContainmentMoldMobilizing
DocumentationLocal crew
Water removalOwner on site
Moisture mapping
Controlled demo
Air movementFraming checkCavity checkHour oneBiohazardFamily ownedBefore / afterBefore / afterFull job walkthrough
Extraction, up close
Neighbors who called Ray
The reviews all say the same thing: he showed up.
5.0
Rated by Puget Sound homeowners
“Had a tree fall on my roof, nightmare situation but Ray helped out more than Allstate ever did!”
Daniel Grabstein
Seattle, WA · Google
“Our water heater let go at 11pm and Ray answered his own phone on the second ring. Crew was in the driveway inside the hour with extractors. He walked me through the insurance claim line by line and we were dry in five days.”
Megan Ellsworth
Lynnwood, WA · Google
“Supply line burst under the kitchen sink while we were out of town. Ray found water two rooms away with an infrared camera that nobody else would have caught. Saved us from a mold problem, no question.”
Marcus Whitfield
Bothell, WA · Google
“What I appreciated most was how little they tore out. Other companies wanted to gut the whole basement. Ray dried it in place, documented every reading, and the insurance adjuster accepted it without a fight.”
Grace Tanaka
Mill Creek, WA · Google
“Sewage backup in the downstairs bath — awful. They showed up in full gear, sealed it off, sanitized everything and the smell was completely gone. Ray checked in on us for a week after. Genuinely kind people.”
Alicia Moreno
Edmonds, WA · Google
“Christmas morning, dishwasher line split, water under the whole kitchen floor. Ray picked up on a holiday and was here in 45 minutes. Who does that? He never once talked about money until the claim was already approved.”
Brett Callahan
Everett, WA · Google
“Our crawl space had standing water for who knows how long. Ray crawled under there himself with a light, showed me photos of every joist, and explained what was salvageable. Zero pressure, zero upselling.”
Linda Nakamura
Shoreline, WA · Google
“Upstairs toilet overflowed into the ceiling below. They had containment up in twenty minutes and the drying equipment running before I finished making coffee. Daily readings emailed to me and to the adjuster.”
Diego Ramirez
Kirkland, WA · Google
“I am 71 and I was panicking. Ray talked me down on the phone, told me exactly which valve to shut off, and stayed on the line until he pulled into the driveway. He treated my house like it was his mother's.”
Carol Whitby
Mountlake Terrace, WA · Google
“Small kitchen fire, smoke through the entire house. The odor was gone completely — not covered up, gone. They cleaned the ducts, sealed what needed sealing, and coordinated the rebuild with a contractor they trusted.”
Renée Adjei
Bellevue, WA · Google
Every hour costs money
Tell us what's wet. We'll be there before it gets worse.
Fill this out and we'll call you right back. If water is moving right now, skip the form — call Ray directly and he'll dispatch while you're still on the phone.
Open 24 hours — every day of the year · Alderwood Manor, Washington · 20+ years serving the Puget Sound