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Water Damage
Water damage?
After your company experiences water damage from a leaky pipe, rainstorm or flood, you naturally need to have things back to normal as soon as possible.
If you are dealing with anything other than a huge incursion, you reluctantly might be considering tackling the cleanup and drying yourself to save time or money. The problem is that cleaning up and recovering from water damage is not necessarily as straightforward as it appears. This post highlights 3 important things you want to be aware of when addressing water damage from a small clean water (or Category 1) incursion.
1) Know What You're Dealing With
If you read our recent post on understanding the risks of water damage, then you know that water damage can be caused by three different types of water, for example: |}
- Clean water (Category I)
- Gray water (Category 2)
- Black water (Category 3)
It’s important to see the differences because Category 2 and Category 3 water pose health risks to your employees and customers and have to be handled differently. The most likely sources of fresh water would be water from a pipe, water heater, steam lines or even rainwater. The basic rule of thumb is that it should look and smell like tap water.
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2) Be Sure You Investigate All the Damage
The challenging thing about recovering from water damage from something such as a broken pipe or rainwater incursion is that you can typically only see a small part of the actual damage. The majority of the moisture is often hidden in walls, and it is vital to recognize and dry all the affected areas to reduce mold.
The methods for dealing with damage to walls depend on the type of materials and also what’s behind those materials. Drywall can frequently be salvaged, when you respond quickly to damage. You can buy moisture meters that permit you to assess structural integrity. If the integrity checks out then your drying strategy will be dependent on wall contents. If the wall has insulation, you will have to use flood cuts. If there is no insulation, then usually the best way is to create weep holes. And if you’re dealing with a firewall, you’ll want to use staggered cuts.
You will also need to pull and assess your base molding and flooring materials. If you the floors are carpet, you might be able to pull back the wet area and dry it (and the flooring materials using a fan).
3) Establish Proper Airflow and Maintain the Windows Closed When Drying
Once you discover moisture, your first instinct may be to open windows to help with the drying process, but it might not be your best move. For example, if your building is mechanically ventilated, the systems require constant pressure levels to work properly. You also want to avoid excess coolness or heat and humidity, or you might end up complicating the drying procedure.
Once you’ve pulled away wet materials and established holes or cuts in the wall as needed, you’ll typically need 1 air mover for each 15 — 25 square feet of floor, unless the moisture load and density are especially high, you might need more. To prevent mold, be sure each the layers and materials are dry before putting everything back together. {
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