Restoration 101
Premium Restoration has been dealing with emergency restoration since the early 2000’s and has handled over 10,000 jobs to with over 1,000, 000-man hours in work completed. Premium has hired some of the best professionals in the industry from emergency technicians, contents staff, project managers and especially the administrative staff that can handle any task assigned to them.
With water damage and fire claims becoming more prevalent and more and more people working from home, everyone needs to know who to deal with water damage and hopefully prevent massive flooding their home and businesses. Also, due to the age of buildings in the Greater Vancouver Regional District GVRD and the Fraser Valley Regional District FVRD, Environmental Remediation for Asbestos, Lead, Mould etc. and now COVID 19, this can be a large and expense undertaking and needs to be handled by the appropriate professional otherwise physical and mental health can be compromised.
Water Damage
Water damage happens in many ways into your property due to sewer line and toilet backups, sump pump and water heater failures, broken pipes, washing machine and dishwasher leaks, ice maker line leaks, heavy rain roof leaks, ground water seeping into the basement and natural disasters.
When it comes to a flood or water damage emergency in your home, every minute counts. If floodwater inside your home is not dealt with quickly, your walls, as well as your carpet, flooring, ceiling and personal property can quickly become waterlogged and damaged beyond repair. Flooded zones can quickly become unsafe for human exposure. Consider that dangerous bacteria begin to multiply in wet environments, not to mention rot and mold growth. All it takes is a few inches of water to create a serious threat to your home or office. The harmful effects of water damage can be reduced greatly by the prompt and reliable emergency flood services from Premium Restoration.
Categories of Water
The Categories of water will determine the response necessary to ensure how each restoration professional deal with the claim. The categories determine how dirty the water is and how much potential threat to of disease persists.
Category 1 – Clean water, caught immediately
no real hazard if addressed immediately - Overflowing Sink
Category 2 – Clean water that has been released for more than 24 hours
Requires removal of some porous materials (carpet pad, insulation) can carry pathogens
No fecal Matter
Category 3 – Dirty water, Sewage, water that has been escaped for more than 48 hours.
Requires removal of all porous materials, heavy sanitization. Carries biological contaminants, gram negative bacteria, viruses and pathogens.
Heavy PPE requirement for workers
Classifications
The Classification determines the amount of water that been dispersed and the type of materials that the water has gone through or dispersed onto
Class 1 Water affects small area, non-porous materials
Slow rate of evaporation
Class 2 – Water affects complete room(s) porous materials involved,
Fast rate of evaporation (floor level loss)
Class 3 – Water affects complete rooms, typically from above, porous materials involved
Fastest rate of evaporation
Class 4 – Complex drying situations (Plaster, multiple layers, crawlspaces etc.
Massive Complex – Arena – Entire Hotel – etc.
Drying Techniques
After a flood, it is highly important to remove the water from the flooded structure and contents as soon as possible. In the past, limited technology was not only slow, but resulted in removing and discarding damaged carpets, pads and drywalls. Thanks to today’s powerful equipment, professional disaster restoration companies can completely restore water damaged properties and contents to their pre-loss condition with minimal intrusion or disruption.
The benefits of the advanced drying techniques include:
LGR Dehumidifiers can reduce the relative humidity to as low as 10%, removing up to 16 gallons of water from the air per day. Older dehumidifiers were able to reduce the humidity to only 40%, removing about 5 gallons of water per day.
Drying is much faster – 24 to 48 hours with modern equipment, as opposed to 4 or more days with older equipment.
Thanks to faster drying, mould and other fungi are less likely to develop. The health problems associated with mould are alleviated.
The irreversible swelling in porous materials, such as wood and drywall, is prevented.
Using desiccants, which release very dry and warm air (5% relative humidity and 40ºC) into humid areas, helps eliminate moisture. Silica gel is also used to absorb humidity from the air.
Intra-wall drying helps the drying process inside of walls without removing drywall. Air is forced into cavities behind walls through drilled holes, greatly reducing the drying time of the wall.
With powerful extraction techniques, water can be extracted from the pad, through the carpet, leaving the underlying pad slightly moist but not wet.
Completely drying water-damaged properties and contents requires the advanced tools and techniques used by professionals such as Premium Restoration. In the unfortunate event of a flood, don’t hesitate to call a certified restoration company.
There are multiple types of drying techniques that restoration experts use from invasive procedures to non-invasive procedures. Most professionals use non-invasive procedure so as to keep cost lost for clients. The instrument you use are the most important.
Instruments for Measurement of Water Damage
- Thermal Hygrometer
- Contact Moisture Meter
- Thermal Imaging
Structural Drying
Low Grain Refrigerant Dehumidifiers (LGR’s) work on principal of evaporation through evaporative cooling which allow the wet materials to dry in place, instead of ripping everything out and causing more damage and cost to the insurers:
- Backwards air conditioner
- Require a drain to pump water too
- Process Air ranges from 80 to 250+ CFM –(Cubic Feet per Minute)
- Temperature range (interior) 12C to 35C
Specialty Drying
Air movers are also installed to ensure proper air circulation and no these are not you regular fan. Technicians use a calculation to ensure the proper amount of air movers are s
- Air Movers help circulate the air
- Create air currents in rooms to accelerate evaporation from building materials
- Comes in many sizes and colors
- Snail type and Axial are most common
Injectidry systems can do cavity drying which is specifically developed to target areas that need high air exchange rates. Sets up in minutes. Replace fewer walls & ceilings. Dries beneath and behind cabinets and stairwells.
Desiccant Dehumidifiers
- Evaporation moisture from the air through the use of a heated desiccant wheel
- Expel moisture to the exterior of the building in a stream of reactivation air operating
- Range is almost infinite
- Process Air ranges from 80 cubic feet per minute to 25,000 cfm
- The only real option for large commercial projects.
Fire and Smoke
When your Vancouver home or business suffers fire damage, it’s absolutely devastating. If a team of firefighters was involved, your property will also have water damage from the fire team efforts. This is certainly a highly stressful and confusing situation, where you will need a caring fire restoration company to guide you through this crisis and back to comfort.
Mitigation
- Smoke travels everywhere
- Soot is deposited as smoke cools
- Soot particulate can be very small
- Most soot particulate is extremely carcinogenic
- Type of soot is governed by the materials that burned
-oily, Dry, Protein
-Type of soot drives mitigation process
Restoration specialists start smoke removal by cleaning all surfaces. Once the technicians finish cleaning the visible surfaces, using specialized equipment is often necessary to remove the very last of the odors that are not accessible.
Examples: (Look Around your Space)
- Wall Joints
- Inside the wall cavities
- Inside Vents
What is required to clean up to keep everyone safe?
PPE Equipment necessary to completed fire and smoke restoration
- Respirators
- P100, N95, P100 OV
- Half face, Full face,
-Tyvek Suits
- Gloves
- Booties
Odor Removal
Ozone Machine
- Ozone treatment for smoke damage is basically used to remove any kind of bad odors that linger after the smoke damage. After the fire is put out, soot and smoke tend to stay inside the house. The soot and smoke from fire has an odor which is quite harmful for your health.
- Ozone generators work by: Silent corona discharge: These machines use electric discharge to produce ozone by splitting the normal oxygen molecules in the air into single atoms. These atoms then attach to other O2 molecules in the air to form ozone (O3).
Odor Removal
- Remove particulates in the air
- Common Sizes 500, 750, 2000cfm
- Most have 3 layers of filtration
- Primary matt filter for large particulate
- Secondary pleated filter for smaller particulate
- Main HEPA filter
*All Filters are 1 time use and disposable
Note: Charcoal filters for smoke because it also removes smells
If you have had the unfortunately event of a flood or fire at your home or business, ensure to call the right people to mitigate and repair the situation improper techniques can cause more damage and more costs to the claim.
Premium Restoration has been Restoring Comfort from Crisis since 2006.
Feel free to call and set up an appointment to review your property.
Restoration 101 Blog - Ready for Release Feb 1st On Website and social media
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