How to Preserve Your Furniture after Water Damage?
The natural desire of every person whose home has suffered from water damage is to save as much personal property as possible. Approach the process of cleaning and recovery should be with full responsibility.
On furniture and personal items that have remained wet for more than 24 hours after the water damage, a fungus begins to form and mold grows (both outside and inside). In order to cope with this problem you can use bleach and specialized detergents. In addition, mattresses, upholstered furniture, as well as interior items made from MDF and chipboard should be thrown out, because they are unlikely to be restored.
The primary task of every home owner is to remove sources of contamination. All hazardous materials and chemicals that enter the house during the flood must be quickly removed and disposed of – for this, contact a local service licensed for such work.
A few tips for preserving the affected furniture
Products made of non-porous materials can probably be restored. If they have not absorbed moisture, it is sufficient to dry the products and wash them with disinfectants.
The surfaces of furniture and appliances must be treated with a cleaning agent, then rinse thoroughly with water. This approach allows you to get rid of mold (including its disputes), as well as dirt.
After cleaning and treatment with disinfectants, it is necessary to dry each object, otherwise harmful organisms can return. The active circulation of air helps to accelerate drying.
You should pay particular attention on books, documents, stamps, photographs and other products. They must be washed very carefully and dried. Do not use paper or textile towels, because they can damage the paint. In addition, hair dryers or other devices that allow intense airflow should be avoided, because they will also lead to erosion.
Information stored on computer disks is also subject to recovery if timely action is taken. Products should be washed in clean water, then wrapped in a plastic bag and put into the refrigerator. However, specialists can not do without the help of specialists – the disk should be taken to a professional workshop, whose employees can “pull out” useful data and store them on a new, more reliable medium.
If in the process of processing the property there are problems, it is better to seek the help of professionals. Employees of cleaning companies specializing in processing rooms after water damage know how to cope with any problem that has arisen, to keep your property and make it safe.
First Steps You Should Take after Flooding to Protect Your Furniture
When there is a flood in the first place, you should try to eliminate the source of water. When there is household flooding, it is sufficient to close the tap on a pipe with water. If the pipe burst, it is necessary to close the common tap, which is usually located in the basement. In the event that there is no access to the tap (the basement is closed, there is no crane key or the tap is not found), you need to return to the source of the water flow – the pipe – and try to plug it in with something. To do this, you must first plug a crack or hole cork from improvised materials and then wrap the pipe with some soft or elastic gasket: a dense cloth (for example, a drape or carpet), flexible rubber or linoleum, then a metal plate. Next, you need to try to remove valuable and impaired items (furniture, carpets, etc) from the floor and allow them to dry thoroughly so that the remaining moisture does not cause harm.
Then you should get rid of the water on the floor. It is necessary to do this as fast as you can, so that water does not penetrate deeply into the floor, which can ruin not only the floor itself, but also the ceiling of the neighbors from the bottom floor (in case you live in an apartment).
If there is too much water, it can be scooped up using a container. To do this, you must prepare in advance another large container in which you can drain the water. If the toilet or bathroom is flooded, then the water can be drained into the sink, bath or toilet bowl. In an extreme case (when there is too much water, and there are no tanks for collecting it), you can drain the collected water to the ground by the window.
When the water on the floor is less, you can start wiping the floor with dry rags, periodically squeezing water out of them into a bucket or a basin. A water-aspirating vacuum cleaner can also be used to collect water.
In hard-to-reach places, you should put the gaskets from a dry, water-absorbent fabric that is available at hand (such as rags, blankets, rugs, old clothes, etc.). Instead of fabric pads and rags it is possible to use foam rubber, which, when squeezed, absorbs moisture well, and when it is squeezed, it does not let it out.
If the cause of flooding is a leaking roof, then it must be repaired. But before you start a thorough repair, you need to get rid of the water flowing through it. For this it is not enough to put on the floor the basins and buckets. You need to find piece of dense rubber or other dense material and cover up the crack or a hole in the roof. Rubber can be nailed to the roof, wrapped around the edges of its pieces of wood. For strength and elimination of leakage, use special materials, for example, hardening resin or glue.
If the living area is flooded because of heavy rains or floods, then in this case you are powerless. In severe flooding, when water enters the room at lightning speed because of floods, high water, heavy rain and under threat there is no longer furniture, not an apartment, but life of people, it is necessary to be evacuated urgently.