Your home should be a place where you can keep yourself safe and protected from anything.
However, no matter how great your home is, there might come a time wherein you might experience water damage either coming from your home or the flood.
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Saving Your Home From Water Damage
Water damage is a serious matter that everyone should tend to immediately once the condition is stable.
When you prolong the water to sit still in your home, not only can it damage your house, but it can also impose infections and diseases which can harm your family.
With that, you need to ensure you address the problem, try to restore it, and bring it back to how it’s supposed to be.
Moreover, listed below are the ways on how you can save your home from extensive water damage:
1. Seek Professional Help
While you can always try to restore your home independently, it’d be better for your home to seek professional help.
You can look for companies like SERVPRO of Lee & South Chatham Counties and others to see what kind of services they offer.
With professional help, you can guarantee they’ll be leaving your home in mint condition like there was no history of water damage.
However, hiring for professional help can be expensive since you’ll be paying for their skills and services, but the result would be worth it.
In this way, you can save yourself with the energy of working on your own or having additional charges if you weren’t able to restore your home properly.
2. Remove Every Water Possible
After you control the source of water, you should take time to remove any still water inside your home.
However, before you begin cruising the floor, you should ensure that you switched off the power source for safety.
The last thing you want is electrical accidents, which can cause life.
Ideally, you should use a bucket to collect the water and throw it out of your house, which has a proper drainage system.
While that may take a while and can cause back pain, you may want to consider using a wet vacuum, so you don’t have to do the physical work yourself.
However, a wet vacuum can be quite expensive, not making it a practical choice, especially for small spaces.
3. Dry Up Your Entire Home
While removing the water is one thing you should worry about, the next thing you need to do is dry up your entire home.
Not only will it be uncomfortable for you to walk in a home that has small splashes of water, but they can also develop molds and make the structure of your home weaker.
You can dry your home by ensuring you provide proper ventilation around the room.
If the temperature outside is warm, you should consider opening your doors and windows to allow the heat to come inside.
Along with this, you should also turn on the fans and point them to the area with the most water.
If your home has a vast space that’s been extensively affected by water damage, you might want to consider renting a large-capacity dehumidifier. In this way, the machine will absorb the moisture inside the room, allowing for a thorough drying process.
4. Take Out Wet Furniture Immediately
Before you begin with the process of drying your entire home, you should make sure you clear everything inside.
With plenty of furniture inside your home, you can further delay the drying process along with risking your home into forming molds.
With that, you should have a clear floor with every wet item outside.
As you bring your things outside to dry, you may want to inspect them first if they’re still worth saving.
While you can have a professional dry your mattress and other cushions, it may not be the best option as molds could already form inside it.
For your best and safest option, you should consider purchasing a new one instead.
They can be expensive, but they’ll help ensure that your family’s safe and sound all the time.
Moreover, for your wooden furniture, check if they’re still in great condition.
Some wood may tend to get soft and clumsy after being in the water for too long.
While they might still look great, you should still see if they’re stable enough to stand on their own for a long time.
5. Remove Affected Ceiling
If the cause of water damage in your home is due to an error with your plumbing, you can expect your ceiling to not be in its best shape.
With this, you should focus on removing them to eliminate any further damage.
When you leave your affected ceilings, you can cause more damage inside your home as gravity could take into play.
To avoid any destruction and accidents, you should prioritize removing your affected ceiling right away.
However, you need to be careful as there could be possibilities of things falling right into your body.
For safety purposes, you should wear protective gear.
6. Replace and Re-install Wood
No matter how sturdy your floors and walls appear to be, you should never let them sit still if you still want to save your home.
While they can work with you for a while, softwood can cause your entire house to collapse.
What’s worse is you might develop holes on the floor every time you try to take a step.
To guarantee your family’s safety and the stability of your home, you should replace your wooden floors and walls right away.
This should include everything that’s been affected by the water, including your porch.
While the whole floor replacement can be expensive, it’ll be the best thing to do if you want to prevent any further damage.
The last thing you want to happen with your home as you’re trying to save a few bucks is to see it slowly develop molds and bacteria.
Ideally, you should call for professional help to get the job done for you.
You might also want to check for quality wooden floors like hardwood if you’d still like to proceed with having them.
Conclusion
Your home’s safety should be your priority. While the process can be tiring and expensive, you need to do all of those things to ensure you can still save your home.
If you have any flood insurance, you should give them a call right away so they can provide assistance with whom to call and how you would spend.
