The Process of Drying Important Documents After a Flood

5/19/2020 (Permalink)

When your business in Cookeville, TN, experiences flooding, it is likely to affect more than the floors and the furniture. Many of your important documents may also be damaged. If you have wet documents as the result of a flood at your company, a document restoration company can help you salvage them. This process has four or five steps, depending on the type of documents being restored.

1. Drying

The first thing restoration specialists have to do is remove the excess water. Document drying can be performed with a variety of methods, but one of the most effective ways to dry important documents, books or photographs is freeze-drying. Freezing the documents halts deterioration and allows documents to maintain their basic structure by solidifying them.

2. Sterilizing

Wet documents are often breeding grounds for bacteria after a flood. Many restoration companies use gamma irradiation to penetrate the fibers of documents and kill any microorganisms that are embedded within without the use of chemicals or heat.

3. Deodorizing

Another benefit of gamma irradiation is that it deodorizes your important papers that have been affected by potentially smelly floodwaters. If you must keep the paper itself, you want a process that removes any trace of musty odor.

4. Digitizing

A flood often changes the way businesses keep records. One way to safeguard your documents from future flooding incidents is to digitize and back up your important data. Recovered documents can be digitized, which helps you maximize your protection and also saves storage space.

5. Re-jacketing

For items that cannot be fully digitized, such as books, restoration experts in Cookeville, TN, may be able to replace the book jacket. This process can help you save the book even if the cover is not salvageable.

Floods can cause a great deal of devastation, but that does not mean that all is lost. Restoration professionals may have the tools you need to recover wet documents so that you don't lose important information.

Call us at 931.528.9292 for more information!