The awful sight of water pouring out over your flooring, creeping behind walls, and entering carpeted areas of your home is something everyone who has ever had a burst water pipe, broken washing machine, or other home equipment incident can attest to.
Even worse, it happens at night, so when you awaken, you find a soaked floor or a soft carpet.
Small leaks can become large if they go undetected for days or weeks, resulting in wet floors and cabinets. A leak detector can practically save your life in older homes by avoiding expensive repairs and stress.
When it does happen, home flooding is serious business and needs to be handled right away to prevent long-term harm to your health and irreparable damage to floors and walls.
The following sections provide reasons why you should act right away after experiencing a leak in your home.
Getting Rid of Standing Water
Eliminating standing water right away is the priority. Your best bet for swiftly removing water from carpets and hard flooring, including wood floors, is to have a wet/dry vacuum or a shop vac on standby.
Use anything you have that is absorbent, such as towels or sheets, to soak up the water if you don’t have one of these vacuums. To reuse drenched things, place them in a tub or sink and ring out the water.
Use a squeegee and towels to dry the surface of hard floors even after using a wet/dry vacuum to get rid of the water.
Water Removal
All types of flooring, notably wood floors and carpeting, together with the padding and subfloor, must be dried out as soon as possible in the event of a flood or leak in the property. The wet/dry vacuum you used won’t be able to remove all the water from the carpets completely.
Even an industrial-grade vacuum built to remove water will need more drying to remove any leftover moisture.
You’ll need specialized equipment to properly drain water from carpets and prepare them for additional drying. A reputable repair company will have a water extraction device that is made to reach deep inside carpeting and padding and literally extract water.
Floor and Wall Drying
If the flooding is extremely severe, some water will seep into the walls behind baseboards and underneath them. If the leak resulted from defective piping in a sink or dishwasher, cabinets might also be impacted.
After draining as much water as possible, the affected areas must be dried and dehumidified.
A water damage restoration specialist will have the necessary tools for drying carpets, large area rugs, and flooring deeply. In order to properly dry flooring, walls, and cabinets, powerful air movers are utilized in conjunction with dehumidifiers to remove moisture and drive high-volume airflow into crevices and underneath baseboards.
Disinfecting and Cleaning
To stop the growth of mold and dangerous germs that can persist even after water extraction and drying, all areas should be completely dried before being cleaned with a disinfectant or sanitizing solution.
An air purifier can eliminate odors and allergens that might create uncomfortable reactions if you have family members with severe allergies or asthma.
Conclusion
Leaks and floods in homes can occur at any time. Leak detectors can be useful for the early identification and mitigation of a significant issue.
Standing water must be completely extracted from affected areas as soon as possible after an unexpected appliance failure to avoid permanent damage and expensive replacement.
Get in touch with your insurance agent to report the occurrence and receive recommendations for local water damage restoration experts.
DryZone provides water extraction services in Naples. We’re a full-service restoration company, offering water removal, mold remediation, and fire damage cleanup. Contact us now to learn more!