Water Damage Repair
Best choice for quick and affordable mobile phone and tablet repair. If you have a water-damaged phone or tablet, you can now mail your phone to us for quick and easy repair, postage paid
Dropped it in water? Do these three things now
Liquid does its damage over hours, not instantly. What you do in the first few of them changes what we can save.
DO 1. Power it off and leave it off
A powered board corrodes faster and can short. Hold the button until it shuts down — do not restart it to "check".
DO 2. Do not plug it in
Charging a wet phone pushes current through connectors that are already conducting where they should not.
DO 3. Get it to us the same day if you can
Corrosion spreads by the hour, not the week. The sooner the board is opened and cleaned, the more of it survives.
DON'T. And skip the rice — it does not work
Rice does not pull liquid out of a sealed phone. It absorbs a little ambient humidity while the corrosion inside carries on, and it buys the damage time. The same goes for a hairdryer or a radiator: heat drives moisture deeper and can warp adhesive and screens. If the phone is already dry on the outside, the problem is not the outside. What repair shops actually recommend and what to do first go through it properly.
Will it turn on again? Symptoms we see
Liquid damage rarely announces itself as one clean fault. These are the ones that come through the door most often — none of them means the device is finished.
It will not turn on at all
The most common one, and the least conclusive. A dead phone after a spill is usually a power-rail or connector fault on the board rather than a dead phone — it is exactly the case that gets written off elsewhere and comes back working here.
The screen is black but it is running
You hear it, it vibrates, it charges — you just cannot see anything. That is normally backlight circuitry, one of the first things liquid reaches.
Ghost touch, or the screen ignores you
Taps landing in the wrong place, or the phone operating itself. Liquid under the digitiser reads as a finger that is not there.
Lines, flicker or a washed-out display
Distortion and flickering after a spill point at the display connector or the display itself, not always at the panel glass.
It will not charge, or charges intermittently
Charging ports corrode early because they are the opening liquid finds first. Often a port replacement rather than anything deeper.
Sound is gone after a spill
Speaker or microphone dead, or callers cannot hear you. Small components, easily corroded, individually replaceable.
Your Device Can Be Fixed
Did You Know That 80% Of Water Damaged iPhone and iPad Can Be Repaired!
Water-damaged phones and tablets aren’t always beyond repair. At CellFixx, our technicians carefully inspect liquid-damaged devices to determine the extent of the damage and identify the components that may be recoverable. Acting quickly can improve the chances of restoring your device, so we recommend getting professional help as soon as possible.
Common Water Damage Issues
When liquid gets inside a phone or tablet it corrodes the logic board and connectors within hours. Acting fast gives us the best chance to clean, recover, and restore your device to full working condition.
- No backlight or no image on the screen
- Liquid corrosion / oxidation cleaning on the logic board
- Ghost touch or unresponsive touchscreen
- Device powers on but will not boot
- Distorted display or flickering lines
Tablets Can Also Be Repaired
No-charge and dead-device symptoms are common after liquid exposure. We replace corroded charging ports, batteries, and power components to bring your phone or tablet back to life.
- Missing battery area components
- Damaged connector replacement
- Screen replacement
- Battery replacement
- Classic pry damage - no power / no home button function
Find out what is recoverable — free.
What it is, what it went into, and how long ago. We will assess it free and tell you what is recoverable and what it costs before any work starts.
Fast & Reliable
Book a Repair
Water damage by device
Liquid behaves differently depending on how a device is sealed and where it vents. What that means for yours:
iPhone
Apple builds a Liquid Contact Indicator into every modern iPhone — in the SIM tray on recent models — and once it has tripped, Apple's own policy is to replace the device rather than repair it. That is a warranty position, not an engineering verdict. A tripped LCI on a phone that was powered off quickly is one of the most recoverable cases we see
Samsung Galaxy
An IP rating is a factory figure, tested new, in clean water. Seals age, adhesive fatigues after a screen or battery change, and the rating covers nothing about pool chemicals, salt or soft drinks. A water-resistant Galaxy that has been opened once, or is three years old, is not the phone that passed the test. Samsung Galaxy repair.
Google Pixel
Pixels vent through the microphone and speaker mesh, so a spill often reaches audio components before anything else — muffled calls or a dead speaker after a soaking is frequently the whole fault, and it is a component swap rather than board work. Google Pixel repair.
iPad
A tablet gives liquid more room to travel and more time to sit before anyone notices. The larger battery bay and longer board runs mean corrosion is often further from the entry point than on a phone, which is why an iPad that seems fine for a week can fail afterwards. iPad repair.
Your Device Can Be Fixed
Liquid behaves differently depending on how a device is sealed and where it vents. What that means for yours:
Did You Know That 80% Of Water Damaged iPhone and iPad Can Be Repaired!
Don't settle for anyone telling you otherwise. The guys at the Genius bar may be quick to declare your device dead because their policy is to replace, not repair. But many water damaged devices can be saved with the right expertise and tools.
WHAT CAN BE WRONG
Common Water Damage Issues
When liquid gets inside a phone or tablet it corrodes the logic board and connectors within hours. Acting fast gives us the best chance to clean, recover, and restore your device to full working condition.
- No backlight or no image on the screen
- Liquid corrosion / oxidation cleaning on the logic board
- Ghost touch or unresponsive touchscreen
- Device powers on but will not boot
- Distorted display or flickering lines
Tablets Can Also Be Repaired
No-charge and dead-device symptoms are common after liquid exposure. We replace corroded charging ports, batteries, and power components to bring your phone or tablet back to life.
- Missing battery area components
- Damaged connector replacement
- Screen replacement
- Battery replacement
- Classic pry damage – no power / no home button function
WHAT WE DO ABOUT IT
We assess it the same day you bring it in
Free, and before anything is committed. We open it, look at how far the liquid travelled and what it has already reached, and tell you what is recoverable and what it costs.
Disassembly and corrosion cleaning
The board comes out and is cleaned properly — not wiped. Oxidation is removed from the board, the shields and the connectors, because anything left behind keeps eating after you leave.
Component-level testing, not guesswork
Power rails, display and charge circuitry and audio components are tested individually so the fault is found rather than assumed. Corroded parts are replaced.
If the board needs more than a clean
Chip-level faults go to our own micro soldering bench rather than a mail-away lab. You are told before that happens, not after.
You get a timeline once we can see it
How long depends entirely on how far the corrosion got, which is not knowable until the device is open. We give you the timeline at the counter after the assessment, along with the price.
Laptops and MacBooks too
A spilled drink on a laptop keyboard is the same problem with more board to cross. We take water-damaged laptops and MacBooks at the same bench, with the same free assessment first — and the same honesty about when a board has gone too far.
Water-Damaged Phone? Repair It, Trade It In or Replace It
Most wet phones can be repaired, and the assessment is free. If yours cannot be, you still have options.
Repair the Water Damage
About 80% of water-damaged iPhones and iPads can be repaired. Power it off, skip the rice, and bring it in. We assess it free and confirm the price first.
Trade In a Water-Damaged Phone
If the corrosion has gone too far, we’ll tell you. A phone that is not worth repairing is usually still worth something toward a tested pre-owned one.
Need Another Phone?
We sell tested pre-owned phones in store, with unlocked options available. Stock varies by store.
All three happen in store at our Durham, Burlington, Greensboro, Winston locations. Bring the phone powered off, and your data is wiped securely before any device changes hands.
What Our Customers Say
fREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Can you fix my phone when dropped accidently in water?
Yes, we can inspect phones and tablets affected by water or other liquids. Our technicians assess the internal components, clean and diagnose the device, and determine which parts can be repaired or replaced. The possibility of recovery depends on the type and extent of the liquid damage.
What does a water damage iPhone and iPad look like?
Water damage can cause symptoms such as a device that won’t turn on, charging problems, speaker or microphone issues, distorted display, overheating, or unexpected shutdowns. In some cases, the damage may not be visible externally, which is why professional inspection is recommended.
Can a phone with water damage actually be repaired?
Most of the time. Around 80% of water damaged iPhones and iPads can be repaired — the board is cleaned of corrosion and the components the liquid destroyed are replaced. The cases that genuinely cannot be saved are usually the ones that were charged and used wet for days before anyone looked at them.
Is it worth repairing a water damaged phone?
Almost always, compared with buying a replacement. A corrosion clean plus a component or two costs a fraction of a new device, and your data stays where it is rather than needing to be migrated. We will tell you honestly at the assessment if the damage has gone far enough that it is not worth it.
How do I know if my iPhone has permanent water damage?
You cannot tell from the outside, and a red LCI does not mean permanent damage — it only means liquid got in. That is the reason Apple declines the repair, not a verdict on the board. The real answer comes from opening the device and seeing how far the liquid travelled and what it has already corroded, which is what the free assessment is for.
My phone won't turn on after it got wet — is it dead?
Not necessarily, and this is the case most often written off elsewhere. A phone that will not power on after a spill usually has a fault on a power rail or a connector rather than a dead board. Leave it off, do not try to charge it, and bring it in.
Does putting a phone in rice work?
No. Rice does not draw liquid out of a sealed phone — it absorbs a little ambient humidity while the corrosion inside carries on, and it costs you the hours that matter most. Heat is worse: a hairdryer or a radiator drives moisture deeper and can warp adhesive and screens. Power it off and get it looked at instead.
How much does water damage repair cost?
It depends on how far the liquid travelled and what it reached, which is genuinely not knowable until the device is open — so we do not publish a figure we would have to take back. The assessment is free, and you get the exact price and the timeline before any work starts.
How long does water damage repair take?
We assess it the same day you bring it in. How long the repair itself takes depends on how much corrosion there is and whether any components need replacing, so we give you the timeline at the counter once we can see inside — along with the price.
Do you repair water-damaged laptops and MacBooks?
Yes. A spilled drink on a laptop is the same problem with more board to cross, and it goes to the same bench with the same free assessment first.
