Water-damaged phone: what to do in the first ten minutes
What you do in the first ten minutes decides whether a wet phone is a cheap repair or a total loss. Most of the phones we cannot save were not killed by the water — they were killed by what happened afterwards.
Do this, in order
- Get it out and switch it off. Hold the power button and shut it down properly. Do not check whether it still works. Do not open apps to see.
- Do not plug it in. Not to a charger, not to a laptop, not to anything. This is the single most damaging thing people do.
- Dry the outside with a cloth. Tip out the charging port and speaker openings.
- Leave it off and bring it in as soon as you reasonably can. Same day matters.
Why powering it on is what kills it
Water alone is not especially destructive to a phone board. What destroys it is electricity plus water plus time.
Tap water, rain and seawater all conduct. When a live board is wet, current crosses between points that were never meant to connect. That does two things: it shorts components directly, and it drives electrolytic corrosion, where the current strips metal from one contact and deposits it elsewhere. Corrosion keeps progressing after the phone is dry, quietly eating traces and component legs.
A phone that was switched off promptly usually comes to us with clean-able residue. A phone that was left on, or plugged in, often arrives with corroded pads under the shields — a much harder and more expensive job, and sometimes an unrecoverable one.
Rice does not work
Rice is the most persistent myth in phone repair. It is a poor desiccant, it is far too slow, and while your phone sits in a bowl for two days the corrosion carries on unchecked. It also sheds starch and dust into the ports.
The real problem is that rice treats the wrong thing. Drying the phone is not the goal — removing the contamination is. Water leaves behind minerals, salts and whatever else it was carrying, and those stay on the board after every drop of moisture has evaporated. A "dry" phone with residue on the board is still corroding.
The same applies to hair dryers, which push moisture deeper and can lift components with heat, and to sunlight, which does nothing useful.
What proper water damage recovery involves
The phone comes apart, the battery is disconnected first, and the shields over the board come off — the water is underneath them, which is why surface drying achieves nothing. The board is cleaned properly, inspected under the microscope for corrosion and lifted components, and anything damaged is dealt with at component level.
Then it is tested. A phone that boots is not a phone that is fixed: a board with corrosion under a shield can work for two weeks and then die. Checking it properly is part of the job.
Be realistic about the odds
We are not going to promise every wet phone comes back. A phone switched off immediately and brought in the same day has a good chance. A phone that was plugged in while wet, or arrives a week later, is a much harder proposition and sometimes the honest answer is that it is not worth the money. We will tell you which one you have before you commit to anything.
If your phone is wet right now — switch it off and call us. It is worth the phone call before you try anything else.