How To Clean Up Water Damage

5/25/2021 (Permalink)

Dealing with water damage

Water damage in your commercial building in Colorado Springs, CO, can come from a variety of sources. A toilet on the second floor can overflow and flood the room below it, or heavy rains can seep into the lower levels. While no amount of damage is good news, the best case scenario results from a clean water source. The cleanup process in these cases is fairly straightforward.

4 Steps of the Cleanup Process

Locate Source

Water restoration specialists assess the damage of your building when they arrive on site. One of the best indicators of how complicated the restoration process is going to be is the source of the excess water:

• Supply line leak
  
• Busted pipe
  
• Faulty equipment
  
• Toilet overflow
  
• Floodwater
  

When water is contaminated, the technicians know that strong disinfectants and extra equipment will likely be needed to fully mitigate the damage. If the damage comes from a clean source such as a broken pipe, however, they can focus their plan on simply replacing ruined materials.

Tear Out Damage

Even with a clean water source, some of the walls, insulation, flooring or ceiling tiles may be saturated. These ruined materials must be removed so that they don't develop secondary damage such as mold growth. Technicians will likely mark a flood cut several inches beyond the damage they can see to ensure that all the saturated spots are removed.

Dry Area

Even after all the waterlogged materials are gone, the team must make sure the remaining surfaces are dry. This protects the remaining portion of the building from further damage. It also prevents damage in the new parts of the structure.

Rebuild Space

Finally, the restoration specialists put up new walls, floors and ceilings to replace what was removed. They match wallpaper, paint and tile to the remaining structure. The final result is that no one can tell where the damage happened.

A clean water leak or spill may still cause a lot of damage. The cleanup process is relatively simple, though.