Endless Europe

If your home has been submerged in water, you are going to want to get it dried out as soon as possible, but there are a few things that you need to be made aware of before you attempt to do this.  Floods are often unexpected events and preparing for them physically is usually not possible unless the flood comes as a result of a hurricane and even then, protecting the belongings that you have to leave in the house after you evacuate isn’t very easy to do.  You can stop most rain from getting into the house, but not flood waters.

Before you go back into the house after the majority of the water has receded, you need to make sure that going into the house will not expose you to the risk of being electrocuted.  You should not rely on the condition of your neighborhood’s electricity and assume that just because the rest of the neighborhood is without power, you are, too.  Cut the electricity to the house completely off so that you can go back inside safely. 

Get a video, digital, or traditional film camera and begin making a record of just how much damage was done to the home.  Include just how long the house was under water, what was damaged, and approximately how much it will cost to repair or replace it.  This will help a lot when you have to file a claim with your insurance company.

Help ventilate the house and start drying it out by opening all windows and doors, as long as it is not raining outside.  The breeze blowing through the house should help dry things out a little faster, but do not use an artificial heat source to do this task.  Drying out hardwood floors and some other items too quickly this way can do more damage to them than good, so using a space heater or a hot air blower is not advised. 

Any electronic devices in the house should be let to dry out completely before you attempt to use them again.  It is the electricity flowing through an electronic device that damages it to the point of being irreparable, not the water itself.  The combination of the two is what does the damage.

Take wet furniture outside and allow them to dry out; put them in the shade, if possible.  This is because direct sunlight can bleach fabrics and you do not want to do more damage to your furniture than has already been done.

Fort Lauderdale Wet Carpet Drying

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Mildew Damage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.