How to Dry Documents After a Flood

1/10/2021 (Permalink)

A lot can go wrong if there's a flood in your office. Safety should be your No. 1 concern. Once you account for everyone's well-being, you'll take inventory of the damage. It's common to find wet documents in the aftermath of water issues. Many of these items may be highly sensitive and critical. Luckily, there are methods both you and the professionals can use to preserve these materials.

What You Can Do

For some flooding issues at work, you should let professional crews in the San Diego area handle the cleanup. However, there are things you can do to protect your documents and ensure that they dry faster without ruining them.

Carefully remove any books, files, photographs, maps or other documents from water.
Set out these items in a dry place.
For damp documents, flatten them out between two absorbent pieces of paper or cloth.

Calling In the Pros

Flood restoration crews have experience with document drying, in addition to removing water surfaces. It's a good idea to get help from skilled technicians when your documents have been submerged in water. Widespread damage is also a good reason to enlist the services of professional teams.

The Method

To spare your wet documents, technicians will use freeze-drying methods. To do this, a technician will freeze the materials. The next step is to evaporate the frozen water without allowing it to return to its liquid state. With freeze-drying, you can keep dried-out paper from wrinkling and crinkling.

Sanitizing

When lying in water, your documents could come into contact with dirt, debris, and other harmful material. The technicians will disinfect the paper to ensure that it is clean and doesn't pose any danger to you and other users of the documents.
Regardless of the type of wet documents you need to dry and restore, there are ways to save these important items. Follow these guidelines so you don't have to worry about losing your papers.