Water Damage Restoration

Whether you have a small leak affecting part of a room or an entire home that has been flooded for any reason, it is best to leave the drying to the pros. The sooner a professional water damage restoration company can arrive on scene the better. The longer the water is allowed to soak in, the more damage will likely occur. Water travels where it will and soaks into structural materials and wicks up drywall. The more it soaks in the longer it will take to dry.

What is a Pro in the water damage restoration business? An absolute minimum should be a certification and training by the IICRC certifiedcleaners.org . This is only a start, in fact after my first water damage class 12 years ago I learned just enough to know I did not know enough to do it right. Structural drying requires a whole lot more know how then just sucking out the water and placing a few fans down. Improper drying causes mold and other odor problems.

Being a pro in water damage restoration industry starts with proper training of course, but more important then that is a desire to put the needs and health of the water loss victim above their own desires. Having unwanted water in your home is a traumatic event, you want to make sure the person doing the work knows what he is doing and cares enough for you to do it right.

Sunshine Cleaning Systems has prided itself on having a high level of customer service in the carpet cleaning division and has carried that care and concern over to the water damage restoration part of our business. We are small enough still to know you yet big enough to handle almost any size water loss.

What should I do when I have had a leak?

1. Safety 1^st The first and most important thing is safety. Water and electricity don’t mix safely and flooring surfaces can be slick. Over head leaks create potential ceiling collapsing problems. So please be careful and avoid these pitfalls.

2. Call a Pro If you have a lot of water in carpet or inches of standing water trying to remove it yourself is not recommended. You will spend many hours vacuuming with a wet dry vacuum until you grow exhausted. Your efforts won’t typically save us any time since our equipment will allow us to remove much more water then you could on your own. Also our tools are gentle on the carpet during extraction increasing the likelihood of saving your carpet.

3. Verify your pro has the training and experience to do the job. Ask to see their certification card.

How much will the water damage restoration cost?

This is very difficult to answer, but to be honest it will probably be much more expensive then you can imagine. Emergency service companies are required to have trained staff, equipment and trucks available on a moments notice 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Not to mention advertising expense, insurance cost and office support staff. We can provide you with an estimate of potential costs up front but please note it is just an estimate, water damage tends to be a progressive condition. Sometimes jobs go quicker then expected and sometimes it can take much longer. We do bill insurance companies direct as a courtesy to you.

What is structural drying?

Let’s say you have a ground floor pipe leak affecting a wood sub floor under carpet. You have three options.

1. Let it dry on its own, not a good idea since there is a great potential for the sub floor to rot or mildew. Most likely the moisture has wicked up walls and will be in hidden places behind cabinets and in closets. The mold potential is great and mold remediation is not covered by most insurance companies.
2. Tear out all that is wet. Well if it is not a water damage restoration professional doing the tear out then how do you if you removed all wet material? Say you remove all carpet, pad and cut drywall out two feet up. Now you will need to hire drywall installer, paint entire room, and replace flooring material.
3. Structural drying is a process of removing any standing or easy water. Our advance extraction tools can extract excess water out of carpet and pad in one step. Once that is done advanced dehumidifiers and air movers are used to create a drying environment. If we can get to a water loss within a couple of days a very minimum of damage to your home can be achieved. Carpet and pad usually dries in less then two days. Walls will dry in three most of the time. Many times the only damage is base board removal, toe kicks on cabinets are removed and maybe some vent holes in some hard to reach areas.

Structural Drying when done properly will reduce the amount of time you are displaced in your home; since reconstruction will often times take many weeks to get done. There will be many jobs that require reconstruction and drying but you’ll at least know it is dry.