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Loss Assessment and Evaluation:  When it comes to water damage, residents of Texas experience more weather related water damage than living in other states.When certain amount of water, such as toilet leakage, enters your premise, time is the essence. Mold will start to grow in a short period of time. Water damage, if not treated properly, can cause long term structural damage and many health problems due to mold and bacteria exist from previously affected area. It’s best to call a water damage restoration professional service as soon as possible to assess water damages and contamination, water extraction/drying and damage restoration.
Water damage service staff will start immediately the inspection of the affected area(s), determine the source of the damage with infrared X-ray or special-designed probes, and decide the best and quickest way to extract the unwanted water. Restoration service will then disinfect, deodorize and sanitize all floors, carpets, walls, and items from building up mold and mildew. After that step, they will use water damage equipment to dehumidify the affected area and any cross-contaminated area. Categories of Water Damage Water Damage is classified into three categories.
Category 1: Clean water This category represents water pipes of the house or property house haven’t broken or damaged. This level contains no substantial health concern to human. Typically example of such water damage is sink overflow.
Category 2: Grey water This category refers to the source of water that has a significant amount of micro-organisms and contaminants and can caused illness when exposed or consumed. A common cause is discharge from dishwasher machine.
Category 3: Black water This level of contamination is refers as ‘major contamination’ and contains high amount of unsanitary agents, such as dangerous bacteria and fungi. This is the most serious case of water damage and should be treated accordingly. Examples are toilet backflow and sewage mitigation.
 Water Damage can be caused by a variation of situations:- Bad weather related water damage, such as flood damage. - Home appliances malfunction, such as washing machine and dishwasher water overflow. - Broken building structure, such as leaking roof/ceiling, broken windows and doors. - Plumbing problems, such as frozen pipes caused internal wall to burst. - Others prone to water damage, such as fish tanks and water heater. Where can water damage in Dallas homes occur: - Carpet - Ceiling - Floor - Basement - Interior wall - Kitchen/Bathroom Sewage Mitigation Sewage spills and backups pose serious health hazards and create a very life-threatening situation for family members. Sewage contain large amount of bacteria and microbes from human waste and organic matter, the longer the situation prolongs, and the more uncomfortable living conditions persist. Bacteria and microbes can transfer through air passage and cause illness. This type of situation must be handle with care, requires immediate and appropriate actions.
Flood Damage No one can predict Mother Nature’s action, water damage caused by heavy rain, flooding, and storms, such as flooded basement, can be devastating to new homeowners on tight budget. Before calling damage restoration and clean up service, be sure to turn off electricity from the main fuse to avoid electrocution and other safety problems. It’s best to start flood damage assessment and clean up as early as possible to minimize secondary damages.
Structural Drying: After discovering the root problem of water damage, your house and its contents still need time to dry thoroughly and restore water-damaged surface, such as furniture and floor. One way to speed up the drying process without making dramatic changes to houses and commercial space is to increase the speed of airflow in the area. Water damage companies provide their own specialized extractor and blowers to take out moisture out the wet surfaces completely and quickly.
Mold Prevention & Remediation: Any place with high humidity level creates a comfortable setting for mold (fungi) to grow. Mold can often be spotted and has a very distinctive smell. People have mold allergy often shown symptoms of itchy & watery eyes, chronic cough, rashes and headaches. Mold creates a very unhealthy living condition for people especially young children and pregnant women, thus mold removal and remediation process has to be very rigid to prevent future mold infestation.
Restoration and Decontamination Water damage doesn’t only affect the initial area but it also affects the area and items around, such as carpet and furniture. Water damage specialists may have to physically remove potentially soiled items away from the affected area; others may have to put under the process of decontamination, in some cases, they have to discard items that can’t be restored.
Monitoring The damaged structure should be monitored with moisture detection tools, such as moisture sensor and thermo-hygrometer, from initial loss evaluation and assessment of the affected areas, and continue throughout each day of restoration operation to make adjustment and necessary steps to make drying process more quickly.
Moisture Control & Dehumidification: After initial step of removing water out of visible surfaces, moisture can also remain floor, walls and carpets. The goal of dehumidification process is to reduce the moisture content from house, school, office building and commercial properties’ structure, and restoring to their original environment. There are two major ways of dehumidification:
 1. Desiccant dehumidificationDesiccant dehumidifier has been used in United States since early 1930’s. It uses a highly absorbent rotary honeycombed silica ‘desiccant’ wheel to remove moisture. Many difficult surfaces where moisture can be easily trapped, such as crawlspaces and hardwood floor, can be drier quicker with desiccant dehumidifier. Desiccant dehumidifier works more effectively at low temperature low moisture level, such as large warehouses where dehumidification is more economical than air conditioning or heating.
2. Refrigeration dehumidification Refrigeration dehumidifier takes out moisture by evaporating water molecules from air in a closed cycle refrigeration system. Refrigeration dehumidifier works better in warm condition with high moisture level. Each time the room air from water damaged area pass through the cold refrigerant coils (the evaporator), moisture condensed on the coils and later pumped out of the dehumidifier. The output from a refrigeration dehumidifier is much drier air and is easy to maintain.
Final Inspection and evaluation A final inspection, including the completion of all steps following government and industry standards, is performed on the premise to make sure it poses no health threat or safety problems. The water damage restoration equipment would be removed and the water restoration process is complete.
Water Damage Dos: When you are faced with unforeseen events involving water damage in Dallas, it’s not something you want to attempt yourself, however there are ways you can do to relieve the situation. - Ventilate wet area. Remove excess water by mopping and blotting - Wipe excess water from furniture after removal of lamps and other tabletop items. Remove all decorative items from walls, if walls are water damaged. - Collect loose items from the floor and turn air conditioning/fan to dry the area. - Remove wet carpeting/rugs away from affected area. - Keep children and pets out of contaminated areas. Water Damage Don’t s: Whether you face water damage in your home or your business, follow these don’t s until professional clean up service crew show up. - Don’t stay in home unless it’s safe to do so. - Don’t use electrical vacuum to suck out water from carpet. - Don’t turn on any appliance, such as ceiling fan, while there are signs of water seeping through ceiling. - Don’t turn on TV or computer unless they are checked and cleaned. - Don’t place newspaper on wet ground since newspaper ink can permanently mark on the floor or carpet. |