Carpeting, as well as any upholstered furniture or stuffed animals, should be thrown away if floodwaters entered your home or company. Because mould grows best in humid conditions, it’s crucial to restore dryness to flooded areas as quickly as possible. After a flood, the first order of business is to clean and dry everything in the building. Cleaning thoroughly can get rid of viruses and bacteria, and drying completely can keep mould at bay. In the process of clearing up your desk, basement, or home. Whether it’s through torrential downpours, rivers overflowing their banks, or storm surge flooding, water can cause devastating effects that necessitate massive and rapid cleanup efforts. Flood damage clean up should be the primary thing to do when flood hits you.
This guide will teach you how to safely assess flood damage and find out what it takes to cleaning up flood damage after a flood so that you can stop more damage from occurring to your property.
Initial Safety and Flood Damage Clean Up
There is a high potential for harm in flooded dwellings. Assume the water is contaminated and act accordingly.
- Notifying your insurance company of the incident is strongly recommended.
- If the power cables to your home are down, you should not go over any standing water.
- Before entering the house, you should make sure the exterior has been thoroughly inspected. If there are evident structural issues, such as a fractured foundation or other damage, it’s possible that there’s a serious and dangerous problem within.
- Remember to flip the switches back to “off” before you come back.
- Schedule regular inspections of your water, gas, electrical, and sewage systems by a professional.
- Make a list of the things you need to replace and take pictures or a video of the damage to your house and possessions.
- Wear sturdy waterproof boots, goggles, and rubber gloves, and keep in mind that insects, snakes, and other critters may be hiding about or even inside your home, so it’s best to be safe than sorry.
- Do not use force to try to open a door that has been locked. Despite its water-filled appearance, the door may be holding up the rest of the structure.
- You should open the windows to let in some fresh air.
- You shouldn’t use a gas-powered generator indoors; instead, use a battery-powered flashlight and do the clean up after flood damage.
Contents Disposal/Recovery
Furniture, rugs, and beds should be removed from the home as soon as possible after the water level drops, preferably within 24 hours. It’s likely that anything left in a flooded area for a lengthy period will be ruined permanently.
- The insurance adjuster must be able to examine the accumulated rubbish on the property.
- The contaminated carpets and rugs in question will need to be replaced. The padding below carpets should be swapped out on a regular basis.
- Get rid of the bed and all the soft furniture in the room.
- All gas and electrical appliances that have been submerged in water must undergo a professional check before being used again.
- Plastic, aluminium, and solid wood are all viable options for furniture construction. Take it outside and give it a good hosing down; you may clean and disinfect it at the same time; then hang it up somewhere out of the sun to dry.
- All food that has expired must be thrown away. Commercially sealed canned goods may be salvageable if their labels are removed, the can is cleaned and sterilised, and fresh labels are affixed that reflect the contents’ expiration date.
- Preserve photos and papers by placing them in plastic bags and freezing them in a frost-free freezer. After thawing, you can clean them by hand or have them cleaned professionally.
- The building can only be cleaned thoroughly once every last piece of trash and usable furniture has been taken out of it.
Cleaning up flood damage and drying procedures begin
Use a shovel or other instrument to remove the mud and debris, and then use a garden hose to rinse out any hard surfaces and flood water damage clean up. In order to prevent mould formation, cleanup efforts should begin as soon as the water level drops. Power restored, immediately turn on all fans and dehumidifiers to speed up the drying process, which may take weeks. Mildew and mould growth must be aggressively combated in the weeks following a flood.
Floor
- Subfloor drying should start as soon as the carpet, padding, and other flooring materials have been removed.
- A wooden subfloor will need to be replaced if it is ever immersed for an extended period of time since the wood will expand and cause damage.
- Having a wooden floor completely submerged in floodwater is not ideal.
- In order to determine if the tiles may be salvaged, the subfloor must be inspected for water damage and dried out.
Walls
- Tearing down the sheetrock at a height of 1 foot above the base flood level.
- A six-inch hole might be hacked out of the top of the wall to increase airflow inside.
- If the plaster and panelling are going to be salvaged, it is essential that air flow into the wall cavities to dry the area.
- If insulation gets wet within a wall, the entire thing needs to be removed.
- Brick walls will need to be pressure washed, and water damage to wood and masonite siding may require replacement.
Basement
- Basements that have been flooded should have the water drained carefully, at a pace of two feet per day, to prevent any long-term structural damage. If water is pumped out of a basement too quickly, the walls could collapse due to the weight of the water-soaked earth outside.
- A dehumidifier should be used to remove moisture from the air and the woodwork behind the walls, in addition to a pump or a wet/dry vacuum for water extraction.
- For this reason, it is important to take extra precautions when cleaning the interior of concrete foundation walls and do the flood damage clean up.
If there is anything else in need of repair on your property, please contact our EFRS team. Our specialists offer installation and repair services so that you can put your energy into getting your life back on track after a big restoration.
