Many home and business owners don’t realize the time factor when dealing with water damage. After the initial damage, water invades and creeps into the home structure as time progresses. With each minute that passes, the water may affect carpet padding, the walls, hardwood floors, and even grout lines in tiles. Unattended water damage in the ceiling is even more damaging because this can lead to the collapse of the ceiling.
Aside from structural damage, water damage can lead to serious problems like poor air quality, growth of mold and mildew, humid atmosphere, and an unpleasant smell that permeates walls, floors, and ceilings. These conditions result in health hazards. More than that, when water sits for a long time, total reconstruction is often the only option left for homeowners and business owners.
In order to avoid further problems, it is important that you act quickly on a water damage problem and control the environment within the affected home or building.
Call in a Certified Water Damage Expert
The first thing you need to do is to call in a water damage restoration expert to do assessment of the affected area. The water damage restoration expert can fully determine the extent of the damage (where the moisture has gone, how damaged it is, etc). After the inspection and assessment, the expert can develop a comprehensive restoration plan. The plan should include determining which items are worthy of restoration, and which aren’t.
Control the Home or Building Indoor Environment
As water damage results in poor indoor environment, it is very important that you attend to this problem to avoid health hazards. You can limit the bad effects of water damage through controlling temperature, airflow, and relative humidity. An effective way to control these conditions, high moisture environment in particular, is to use damage restoration drying equipment like air movers and dehumidifiers. If these are not readily available and the water damage started within the last 24 hours, turn on the air conditioning if it’s available. If your furnace and A/C have not been damaged, you’re A/C is a large dehumidifier, so this can be used to assist in eliminating the high humidity.
Drying the structure using drying equipment often eliminates the necessity of replacing walls, carpet, hardwood floor, and other affected area, which can be expensive. More importantly, you remove the bad odor and stain caused by mold and mildew. If drying the structure is not properly done, these problems will come back after few weeks.
Although you can purchase drying equipment and other necessary water damage restoration equipment, your best option is to go with damage restoration professionals. These professionals are trained to handle your problem using state-of-the-art equipment.