waterdamagequotesHow we check what is on this site
The direct competitor in this space publishes cost figures described as “estimates synthesised from public market data using AI research”, with no sample size and no sources. This page is the opposite of that: everything read, when it was read, and — more usefully — everything that was left out.
The rule
A number goes on this site only if it was read from the instrument that sets it or from a named publisher’s own page. If it could not be read, it is not published. The build gate enforces this literally: an unresolved source marker renders visibly on the page and fails the release check, so the failure mode is an obvious hole rather than a plausible invention.
What was read, and when
What is deliberately missing
An average cost of water damage restoration in Australia
Not published, because it does not exist in any form worth repeating. There is no Australian survey of restoration invoices in the public domain. What is published instead is an itemised rate card from two named companies and a calculator that multiplies it out and shows every line. A reader who wants a single number can have one, but they can also see exactly which nine figures produced it.
The South Australian building indemnity insurance threshold — published late
From 20 to 22 September 2026 this site published no South Australian figure. The legislation register answers automated requests with a Cloudflare challenge, and the current threshold sits inside documents the build host could not retrieve. On 22 September the Building Work Contractors Act 1995 (version 15.1.2026) and the Building Work Contractors Regulations 2026 (version 1.9.2026) were read from the register’s own RTF copies inside a browser session. The figure now published — $20,000 or more, if the work needs development approval — carries both provisions it depends on: s 33(2) of the Act and reg 4(4) of the regulations. Those RTF copies are marked as not published under the Legislation Revision and Publication Act 2002; the authorised PDF sits beside them on the same register page, and it is the version to rely on.
AFCA’s per-claim compensation cap
AFCA’s monetary restriction of $1,263,000 was read from AFCA’s own announcement and is published. The separate per-claim compensation cap was not read from AFCA’s own page, so it is not published, even though it is widely quoted elsewhere.
One hipages figure that was left out
hipages publishes state-by-state hourly rates for mould removal in the low thirties of dollars an hour, alongside its own carpet-cleaning guidance of $40 to $60 an hour. Those two cannot both describe the same labour market, so the mould hourly figures are not reproduced here. The whole-home range, the inspection cost and the air test cost from the same page are, because nothing else on the page contradicts them. Where a publisher’s own figures disagree with each other, we do not pick the convenient one.
The text of ANSI/IICRC S500
S500 is the standard Australian restorers scope water damage against, and it is a paid ANSI standard. Its text is not reproduced anywhere on this site. Where water categories and drying classes are described, they are described in our own words, as Australian restoration companies use them in their own published material.
Premiums, approval rates, response times and ratings
None of these were measured, so none of them appear. That includes the “on site within 60 minutes”-style promises that are standard in this market: we are not the ones attending, so we are in no position to make one.
Two numbers, two languages, one check
Several figures on this site exist twice — once in the page you are reading and once in the JavaScript behind the calculator and the cover check. That is exactly how a site ends up contradicting itself, so the rate card, the postcode routing table and every rule behind the cover check are generated from a single Python module into the JavaScript, and two checking scripts re-read the shipped JavaScript — not the Python that produced it — and compare them field by field. The cover check is compared across all 4,536 combinations of its six questions. A hand edit to the generated file fails the build.
Corrections
If a figure here is out of date or wrong, write to contact@waterdamagequotesau.com with the source and it will be corrected or removed. Corrections are made to the page, not appended to it, and the reviewed date at the top of the page moves.