Insider Tips on How to Salvage Wet Books and Documents
Floods and water damage bring a number of concerns and problems. Flooding caused by storms oftentimes means serious property damage, while plumbing failure can result from various frustrating and expensive issues—including a broken piping system or water heater system. When all of that is added to the potential for mold growth and the risk of water damage, it’s pretty easy to gather just how taxing a flood can be.
If you’ve recently experienced a flood that has caused a significant amount of damage to important documents or cherished books, call Allied Restoration Company immediately at 425-458-5756. We will guide you through our Seattle document recovery process and have our experts work to restore your belongings back to their previous condition. Call us today to salvage wet books.
Here are a few points our technicians consider when recovering documents and books:
Safety
Safety is a top concern for any remediation project, and it is one reason why no untrained person should do this alone. Proper safety measures involve wearing the proper attire: disposable gloves—either latex or nitrile—a quality dust mask and an apron or smock.
Supplies
The two basic requirements are a clean work surface and scissors. The rest of the tools depend on whether or not the technician is air-drying your documents or freezing them for later treatment.
For the air-drying method, our technicians may use:
- Cloth or paper towels
- A clothesline or long string
- Wood or plastic clothes pins
- Distilled water
- Plastic wash tubs
For the freezing method, we use:
- Waxed paper
- Sturdy milk crates or boxes
- Re-sealable plastic bags
- Packing tape
- Permanent markers
- A freezer
Air-Drying
If there are only a few damaged items, then air-drying is a viable option as long as it’s done immediately. To air-dry a document, photograph or book, the first step is to use clean water to rinse pieces that are dirty and saturated—making sure the books are closed during this step.
For books, we interleave the pages with an absorbent material, in 25 to 50 page intervals, and then lay the books flat to air-dry. If the books are only a slight bit wet and still in good condition, we stand them on their spines and fan the pages.
For important documents, we spread them out, face-up, on absorbent material for air-drying. Photographs should be dried individually, face-up, on absorbent material.
Call a Professional for Document Restoration
If you’ve recently had any important documents or books exposed to large amounts of water after a natural disaster, then call Allied Restoration Company at 425-458-5756. Allied is the trusted company for document recovery in Seattle.