Have your iPod or cell go through the wash? Spill coffee on your keyboard at the cafe? Liquid damage is one of the most common causes of laptop, iPod, and cellphone death and destruction that we see. We all know that water and electricity don’t mix – but not all is lost.

If you act quickly and don’t panic, there are steps that you can take to boost your chances of saving your water or other liquid damaged electronics. Hopefully, by the time you read this, you’ve already done step 1:

Power off the device/pull out the battery, power cord, or other power source IMMEDIATELY

At this point you can get a lot of different advice. We’ve heard anything from dunking the device in alcohol to blowdrying to baking it in the oven. If you’re gonna dunk it in alcohol, make sure it’s as close to pure as possible (don’t use that 70% rubbing alcohol stuff).

You should really take it apart as soon as possible to dry the insides, but if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, you can usually get by with some other methods. The only problem with this is that, while you might dry the insides eventually, they may corrode and short the circuits, especially if you drop it in anything except pure water (snow that’s been salted, a lake, a bowl of soup, etc).

You might be tempted to take a blowdryer to the device, or worse, bake it. This might cause the device to become very hot since you can’t really control the heat very well. It also causes condensation which really just repositions the water in your device. You might see the inside of your screen fog up. It’s not ideal.

This is the part where we test your patience. You need to dry the device as much as possible, which means time, especially if you don’t want to take it aprat. If you have a dehumidifier, place it by the intake. If you have a bowl of rice, pop your device into it (DRY rice.. it absorbs water).

Whatever you decide to do, give it at least 48 hours to dry properly before plugging in the battery or power source. If you don’t wait, you could fry your device.

If it’s something other than water that soaked your device, cleaning it might get trickier. Pull the battery first. Then, you’ll have to clean it with demineralized water or pure alcohol. You really need to take the device apart in this case.

Unfortunately, most warranties do not cover water damage, unless otherwise specified. Some devices have an indicator that changes color when wet, so if you try to get a warranty replacement for a device that has a water damage, your claim will be denied. Those who have insurance or a warranty — which should be everyone should still be able to file a claim.

Need more help? Send us an email at help@pcxmedics.com, or use our contact form.