Multiple reasons can trigger water damage to your commercial property. Such incidents can be stressful since they can jeopardize your business and pose risks and hazards to the occupants.
Commercial water damage restoration is often complex and calls for an intensive approach, unlike residential water damage. But when you know how to handle the situation, you can recover from water damage quickly and resume normal business operations.
- Determine the Extent of Damage
The first step you ought to take when you notice your commercial property has signs of water damage is to determine the extent of the damage. However, visual checks may not be sufficient to determine the scope of damage on your property. Typically, water can soak into different materials in your building far from the water source without leaving any visible signs for a long time.
Therefore, you may need a specialized tool to measure moisture content in your building materials accurately. Moisture meters used for building inspections can help you get an accurate idea of how water has spread in the building.
Ideally, you should measure the moisture content in the materials adjacent to the area you first noticed signs of water damage. By making progressive checks, you can establish whether the damage is widespread and its severity.
- Contact Water Damage Restoration Professional
When you are inspecting water damage on your own and don’t have the necessary skills and experience, you’ll likely miss something. As such, it’s prudent to reach out to a water damage restoration professional to handle the situation. Most of the tasks involved in water damage remediation work are often too delicate and dangerous for anyone without specialized training and appropriate experience.
For instance, a water damage restoration expert has the necessary tools and experience to minimize risks or safety hazards. Water damage restoration work may expose you to hazards like exposure to fiberglass, mold spores, weak floors, and walls that may collapse. Most importantly, an expert can complete the restoration process perfectly by minimizing additional damage and structural integrity of your commercial building.
- Drain and Dry Out Affected Areas
Draining out any stagnant water after the damage is essential to mitigate further destruction. Once you get rid of all the water, it’s time to dry out all the areas affected by the moisture. Whether you are doing this on your own or you have a water damage professional, it’s vital to have the appropriate tools for the job.
Some of the equipment and tools you need include:
- Wet vacuum for eliminating stagnant water
- Dehumidifier to remove humid air
- Thermo hygrometer to measure humidity levels
- Moisture meters
But if you have a climate control system in your building, you can turn up the heat slightly to prevent the moisture from condensing and speed up the drying process. Most importantly, it would help if you kept the building sealed off from the outside air. If outside air has free access to the rooms, contaminants like mold spores and mildew can enter the premise and proliferate due to moisture abundance.
In addition, if you have any air movers in any opening, make sure to seal the air intake vents to ensure they only remove air from the rooms while preventing outside air from entering the building. Any furniture or other accessories that have been compromised by moisture should be carefully assessed. If it’s too wet, you need to move it outside or discard it.
- Document Everything and File an Insurance Claim
When you are inspecting and figuring out the necessary repairs for water damage on your property, it’s essential to document all the details of the damage. Ideally, you should be keen to record the cause, extent, and needed repairs. Documentation is vital, especially when you intend to file a water damage insurance claim for the damage. If you approach your insurance provider without sufficient documentation, they will likely deny the claim.
It’s best to use moisture meters that can capture readings with timestamps and translate the data into a clear presentation. This approach ensures accurate documentation about the water damage extent at the time of inspection, which is a necessary step to justify your insurance claim. Most importantly, you should take photographs of the damage to fortify the evidence of water damage.
If you have to throw away items like furniture and electronics, document everything you’re disposing of. This helps determine the actual losses you’ve suffered when the insurance representative assesses your compensation claim.
Conclusion
Dealing with water damage on your commercial property is a serious problem that can be stressful. Therefore, it’s critical to deal with the situation immediately to avoid further damage. Depending on the severity of the damage, you might want to reach out to water damage professionals to salvage the situation. Most importantly, it’s critical to document everything to ensure quick approval of your insurance claim.
