Repair guide
Your phone got wet: what to do in the first hour
The steps that actually improve your odds after liquid damage — and the popular advice that makes things worse.
Liquid damage is a race against corrosion, not against water. Water alone doesn’t usually kill a phone — what kills it is what the water leaves behind, reacting with a powered circuit board over the following hours and days.
So the first hour matters more than anything you do afterwards.
Do this now
- Turn it off. Not sleep — properly off. Most liquid damage happens while the board is powered, not while it’s wet.
- Don’t plug it in. Charging a wet phone is the single most reliable way to turn a recoverable board into a dead one.
- Get the case off and the SIM tray out, so trapped water can drain.
- Dry the outside and stand it on its edge on something absorbent.
- Leave it off and get it looked at. Every hour it sits with residue inside is an hour of corrosion.
Don’t do these
Rice. It does nothing useful. Rice doesn’t pull moisture out of a sealed device, and rice dust gets into the ports. It’s popular because phones sometimes survive anyway, and the rice takes the credit.
A hairdryer or radiator. Heat drives moisture further in and can damage adhesive, the battery, and the display.
Turning it on to check. Every power-up is another chance to short something. If it’s off, leave it off — including “just to back up my photos”. A technician can often get the data off a phone that never turned back on; that’s harder after it’s been shorted.
Shaking it out. You’ll move water from somewhere harmless to somewhere expensive.
What “water resistant” really buys you
An IP68 rating is tested in clean, still water for a set time, when the phone is new. Seals age, adhesive weakens after a repair or a drop, and none of it is tested against salt water, chlorine, coffee or anything with sugar in it. Water resistance is a grace period, not immunity — treat a soaked phone as damaged even if it looks fine.
Salt water and sugary drinks are worse than tap water, and worth acting on faster.
Being straight about the odds
Nobody can promise you a liquid-damaged phone will come back. What a diagnostic does is open it, inspect the board for corrosion, clean what can be cleaned, and tell you honestly what state it’s in. Sometimes that’s a straightforward fix. Sometimes the answer is that the board is gone and the useful conversation is about getting your data off it.
Our liquid damage repair diagnostic is $50, credited toward repair. If the files are your priority, data recovery diagnostics are $100, credited toward recovery. Ask about phone and tablet data recovery and tell us which files matter most. Recovery possibilities and the full quote depend on the assessment; confirm intake arrangements before shipping your device. Our mailing address is mail-in only, with no storefront or walk-in service.
For repair mail-in arrangements, see mail-in repairs. Leave a liquid-damaged phone off and don’t charge it.
$50 repair diagnostics, credited toward your repair, and we come to you anywhere in New Jersey.