What is Water Mitigation and Drying Process?

Water mitigation is removing or preventing more water damage in a home that has occurred from flooding. Services provided by a professional water damage restoration company can prevent additional damages by responding quickly to the call, assessing the extent of the water damage, and executing a water damage restoration plan.

Water mitigation is usually required after storms, pipes, sump pumps, water heaters, water softeners, just to name a few, have failed or caused flooding. Water damage starts to occur immediately and it is important to call a water damage restoration professional quickly to minimize the damage.

Don’t try to attempt drying out your home with just residential fans and dehumidifiers. The fans don’t push enough air to pull the moisture out of the wet contents and the dehumidifiers can’t pull enough pints of water out causing more saturation. This will lead to wet rot and quickly turn from a category 1 into a category 2 or a category 2 to a category 3 depending on what the category was to begin with if the moisture is not removed in a quick and proper amount of time. 

Most professionals have commercial heavy-duty grade air movers and dehumidifiers which pull moisture out and remove it very quickly. There needs to be a balance drying system which means you don’t want your air movers pulling out moisture faster than your dehumidifier can remove it or this will cause secondary damage.

There are formulas that we use as professionals to tell us exactly how much equipment we should be able to use to dry out in the 3-day range of industry standards. Most times we can hit that mark, but there are times when we can’t; due to the severity of the damage and how long the damage has occurred before calling. These formulas are based on the cubed footage of the area affected. If there is not enough equipment, it will lead to more damage.

There is a science behind what we do as professionals to dry out your home. We know how to manipulate the direction and the amount being pulled by moving the air movers and dehumidifiers around. We know when we need to add or remove equipment based on our measuring equipment. This will tell us if we are drying out or not.

We use various equipment and methods to check the extent of the water damage. The equipment we use allows us to pinpoint exactly where the water has migrated. Most of the time the damage is not contained in one area. Wet seeks dry so water will continue to migrate to other areas absorbing it’s surrounding such as drywall, carpet, pad, and trim just to name a few.

The Moisture meter we use sends off an alarm showing us what areas and what exactly is wet. This lets us know all of the affected areas so we can plan accordingly to start removing the water and the wet contents immediately.

The moisture sensor allows us to check the percentage of moisture that is in the drywall, trim, and surrounding furniture. This will let us know how far the moisture has wicked up the wall and how wet the legs of the furniture are.

Also, we use a hygrometer to measure the temperature, relative humidity, and dew point. We want to see higher temps and lower RH to know we are drying out. Higher RH and lower temps mean we have a lot of moisture in the area and drying needs to continue.

Typically, drying times are within 3 days of removing moisture and water-damaged contents. This is not always the case. Sometimes depending on the severity of the water damage, it can take longer. That is where all of the measuring equipment comes into play because it shows us exactly the areas that are dry and the areas that are still wet. Then we can focus on those particular areas of interest to continue the drying process.

Most hygroscopic materials such as drywall and trim dry much faster than a sill plate or subfloor. They may require longer times for air movers and dehumidifiers to run depending on the amount of saturation.

Just because the industry standard is usually 3 days doesn’t mean we are pulling our equipment out until your home is completely dried. We will stay in constant communication with your insurance adjuster letting them know every step to dry out your home properly. 

We have a methodical process that we follow to ensure that we are drying your home or business in accordance with the IICRC (Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification) Standard of Care.

By drying out your home or business in a timely manner, we are preventing the opportunity for mold growth and contamination, which starts to occur within the first 24 to 48 hours after a home or business experiences water damage.