Things such as burst sewer lines, leaking pipes, and natural disasters can wreak havoc on your home. When your home is impacted by water damage, it is essential to know what to do and how to deal with that damage safely.
1. Turn Off the Power
Water and electricity do not mix. When you know your home has been impacted by water damage, you should turn off the circuits to all the rooms affected by the water damage. Then, if you can do so safely, unplug all electronics in the room where the water damage occurred. You don't know how the water impacted the electrical system or the electronics, and you want to do what you can to minimize the risk of electric shock.
2. Remove Porous Materials
Water always finds a way to go somewhere, and any porous material can soak up the water in your home. Therefore, anything porous, such as carpet, upholstery, and insulation, needs to be pulled out immediately and removed from your home.
Porous materials tend to hold onto water, which then turns those porous materials into a vector for transmitting mold and mildew throughout your home. Therefore, the sooner you remove porous materials from the water that damaged the area, the more you reduce the chance of your home being impacted by mold and mildew, which can be expensive and time-consuming to clean up.
3. Get Rid of All Moisture
After your home experiences water damage, it is essential not only to remove the water from your home but also to remove all the moisture from your home. To dry out your home, you are going to need to bring in large-capacity dehumidifiers and fans to move air and get the moisture out of your home. Since you likely don't have these things on hand, you can hire water damage cleanup services to take care of everything.
It is crucial to run the fans and dehumidifiers until all the moisture is gone from your home. You can use moisture readers to figure out the humidity level in your home and what is normal in your area. You will want to dry things out until the humidity level in your home matches that of the local area.
4. Disinfect the Space
When you are dealing with water damage, there is a good chance that bacteria and other hazards may have in the water, depending on the water source. You don't know what type of bacteria or diseases may be in the water, and you don't know what type of mold spores are present. That is why you will want to disinfect the area to kill any bacteria and mold spores. The area must be disinfected before you start rebuilding.
After your home experiences water damage, you need to be careful with electronics. You need to get rid of porous materials so that they don't end up being a vector for mold and mildew. Get rid of all the moisture in your home via fans and dehumidifiers. Be sure also to disinfect the space before you start trying to rebuild or use the area.
Share12 May 2021
Even if you don't live in a flood zone, your home could be exposed to the same damages caused by the water entering the home during a flood. When a pipe bursts or an appliance malfunctions, your home could quickly become damaged by water. When this happens, do you know what to do? Do you know how extensive the damage could be? Having suffered through a situation in which my water tank burst and filled my basement with water, I know very well what goes into cleaning up the mess. Visit my website to learn what clean-up efforts were done by my family and what we left to the professional restoration contractors.
