Few issues with your house may come as a bigger shock than suddenly seeing water damage. Fortunately, the water damage restoration process allows many homeowners to get back to normal living fairly fast. Take a look at what will determine how easy or hard that process might be.
Type of Water Involved
Folks in the water cleanup world, the people you may have to deal with before you start a water restoration effort, classify damaging water in three groups. White water refers to clean water. Gray water refers to dirty water, and black water refers to water that has human or animal waste in it.
Generally, the filthier the water was the more work that will have to be done on the restoration job. This may include cutting out damaged materials and replacing them.
Bear in mind that initial cleanup work has to be finished before starting a restoration effort. A contractor can't start fixing the space if there are still contaminated materials present.
Warping
Especially if there is a lot of wood that was damaged, warping can present problems. In particular, warped wood floors have to be dried out slowly and steadily, or else there will be trouble restoring them. As with other forms of damage, extreme problems may lead to materials being replaced.
Be aware that warping can go deeper than just the top of the floor. Underlying support beams can end up bowing, and that can leave you with a serious structural problem. These issues have to be resolved before other work can proceed.
Mold
One of the ugliest possibilities is that the space will be moldy. This can occur even if the water involved in the incident was fairly clear. Simply put, mold is present almost everywhere. Adding water to the equation is often all it takes to make a building into a disaster.
In many cases, mold can be scrubbed away with simple cleaning solutions. However, deep mold damage can make it impossible to preserve materials like wood, drywall, and sheetrock. Once more, the fix is probably going to be removing all of the affected materials and replacing them.
Matching Previous Materials
Some materials are fairly difficult to swap out, and this can present challenges. First, your insurance may only pay for water damage restoration work that gets the place back to its previous condition. Secondly, it might not be possible to find exact matches for materials, paints, and fixtures.
For more information, reach out to a water damage restoration service today.
Share16 July 2020
I never thought much about natural disasters when I was living in the middle of the country, but relocating to the coast brought the threat of hurricanes. A few years ago a big storm ripped off part of our roof after we were evacuated. Arriving home to half a foot of water standing in every room was shocking and scary. Some helpful and reassuring damage contractors managed to save our beloved home, despite all the wind and water damage left behind by the hurricane. Now I spend my spare time advocating for families that need help with storm damage so they get the best results.
