During the time of natural calamities like heavy rainfall or floods, you will see that water damage can create havoc to your property. You can involve professional services to help you with water damage repair & restoration.
Before involving professional help you need to know what you should do in such a situation. Contact your insurance company immediately to check if the damage is covered.
Then you can document your damage by clicking pictures or taking notes of it. Do it yourself water damage restoration is huge work and requires lot of time, but you can go for it if your budget is limited.
Steps to repair water damage by you:
- DIY water restoration tips are here at your rescue. You can sort out the items that are damaged. Then you should remove it. This may include carpeting & sheetrock. Standing water can be removed by connecting a pump to a hose to bring the water level down.
- Think of your safety. Do not start cleaning the mess without wearing proper masks or gloves. Presence of dangerous molds and bacteria can threaten your health.
- You may find it irritating to remove logged water and damaged personal items. You can also hire professionals for this work, but the cost can go higher. Instead, you can wear a mask and gloves and start cleaning by yourself as much as you can. It can save you a lot of money.
- Try to remove the water from the basement yourself. If the amount of water in your basement is huge then you have to go for professional services. In case, the amount of water is smaller you can evacuate it by yourself thus saving your money from hiring professional water mitigating services.
- Once you clear the water and damaged contents, you can start cleaning the remaining areas like the walls, floors etc with disinfectants. You can use bleach solution as a disinfectant, but professionals use other products. You can go for eco friendly products that are highly effective and safe to use.
- Bacterial and microbial growth depends on factors like moisture level, temperature and food source. Increase in microbial growth can lead to an increase in remediation cost. So, start drying your place. Use fans throughout the affected area.
Precautions that can be taken before hand
It is good that you know how to deal with water clogged situation, but it would be great if you take certain precautions beforehand. This will help you to save your money, time and energy.
- You keep all your extra items in your basement. Once in a year recheck your basement and recycle those extra items. At least there will be no worries of clutter.
- During the time of heavy rainfall and flood your items kept on the basement floor will get damaged. It is suggested that you come up with metal or plastic shelves. Wood shelves can be cleaned easily hence can be preferred. Getting your items off the floor will be cheap solutions to your future problems.
- You can use plastic storage bins. They are cheap and good place to store your items. Try to keep your bins a few feet above the ground in case there is enough flooding.
In a messy situation when there is flood water around you all over your place, it can be quite devastating for you to decide what to do & what not. This article can help you with ideas that can help you solve your problem without involving professional help.