How to Beat Water Damage

DO NOT USE RICE

Now that that’s out of the way… Whether you were caught in a rain storm, dropped your phone in a toilet, put it through a cycle in the wash, or forgot to take it out of your pocket before a perfect 10.0 cannonball — you’re not alone. At this point, most of us have exposed a phone to water and dealt with the headache that came after. Hopefully the following tips will help you avoid a headache in the future.

You just realized your phone is wet, or about to get wet — what do you do?

Turn it off as quickly as you can. We want to turn the phone off quickly to avoid the possibility of short circuiting small components on the motherboard. If you have a removable battery, removing it would be the fastest way to turn off the device.

The phone is off. Now what?

If you can get your phone into our shop at 2200 W. Main Street, do so! We can take measures in the store that most customers cannot take at home. If your phone fell in salt water, then getting the phone to a reputable repair shop very quickly is pretty much your only hope.

If you can’t make it into the shop, the next step is to get the water out of the phone as quickly and as safely as possible. The best way to make water disappear is to heat it up. These phones are, for the most part, very resistant to extreme temperatures.. The aim here is to exploit this heat resistance. The easiest and first option to heat your phone should be to set it in sunlight for a couple of hours. You want the phone to be very warm, not hot — the phone should never be so warm that you can’t rest your hand on it for an extended period of time. You can even put a damp, unfolded washcloth or paper towel beside the phone and wait until the cloth is dry to remove the phone from the sunlight — a dry cloth is not a definite sign the phone is dry, but it’s a decent indicator. Do not use a hairdryer, microwave, oven, etc — a hairdryer and oven could work, but are dangerous options as the heat is hard to control for a DIY-er.

The final touches.

Now that you’re certain that your phone is dry, it is safe to try to turn on. If it does not turn on, or if you notice unusual aspects, find a way to get it into the she shop as quickly as possible.

A few last thoughts.

I have found that the LCD is the most likely component to be affected by water damage — this component is replaceable. The battery is also frequently affected by water damage and also replaceable. If the damage has occurred on the motherboard, my best advice would be to contact the manufacturer and utilize their out-of-warranty service. If any repair store charges you more than $30 to service a water damage phone, and they did not fix it and did not use an ultrasonic cleaner — run the other direction.

Disclaimers: The reason that I don’t suggest using rice is that every single time I have pulled a phone out of a bag of rice and opened it up (had it been in the rice for one day or one week), it still had water inside. The reason that I recommend heat is because that is the first thing any repair shop will do when they receive a water damaged device, including us — the only difference is that we can open the device up and get the heat directly on the water. If you have any questions about this post, or if you’ve just dropped your phone in water, please feel free to contact us via email: contact@bullcitymobilerepair.com or phone: 919-937-9703.