24/7 Emergency Service5 Actions To Take When a Basement Floods
6/21/2021 (Permalink)
Contact the basement flood clean-up professionals at SERVPRO for quick services!
It's better to be overly prepared for basement floods.
In and around greater Dayton, Ohio, local residential and commercial properties are prone to basement flood damage caused by heavy rainstorms. In a previous blog post, we went over flood prevention tips to help the Dayton locals prepare for basement floods. This blog post will go over what a property owner can do immediately after a basement flood.
If you are currently in the middle of a basement flood, your best course of action will be to shut off all electrical power to the house and contact the professionals at SERVPRO for fast action services.
5 Actions when dealing with a basement flood
- Keep children and pets away from the flooded basement.
- Remove all contents and wet materials
- Extract all water
- Dry the basement
- Apply an antimicrobial
1) Keep children and pets away from the flooded basement
When dealing with a flooded basement, it is best not to allow children or pets to enter the flood-damaged area. Basement floodwater from rain is categorized as category 3 water damage by the IICRC due to the highly contaminated water present. Ony an individual wearing the proper (PPE) personal protective equipment should enter a flooded basement.
2) Remove all contents and wet materials
Only after you have on the PPE can you consider removing all of the salvage and unsalvageable items. To effectively and quickly dry a flooded basement, all category 3 waterlogged items must be thrown away, and all salvageable items should be placed in another area of the home.
If your basement has a lot of content, you will want to get a professional pack-out. A pack-out is where contents are taken to an offsite location for storage and cleaning. In most cases, an insurance company will compensate the property owner for the unsalvageable damaged items and the cost of the pack-out.
You should also remove all of the flood-damaged floorings throughout the basement. Water that sits in carpet flooring can cause mold on the carpet, and water-damaged hardwood flooring will warp.
3) Extract all the water
After all of the damaged contents are removed from the flooded basement, you can begin the water extraction process. The best way to extract water from a flooded basement will be by using a truck-mount water extractor. Our SERVPRO truck-mount water extractor is designed to hold over sixty gallons of extracted water.
Quickly removing all floodwater from a basement is essential in the restoration process because a damp, dark environment is a great place for mold to grow easily.
4) Dry the basement
The only way to ensure that a basement flood is completely dry will be by using industrial fans and dehumidifiers. These two pieces of restoration equipment work in conjunction with one another. The fans will move the water particles into the air while a dehumidifier removes all the excess moisture.
5) Apply an Antimicrobial
Applying an antimicrobial to a water-damaged area stops the growth of mold. The antimicrobial solution SERVPRO uses has proven to kill and slow the spread of microorganisms found in floodwaters.
Skip all steps and call SERVPRO
The professionals at SERVPRO of East Dayton/Beavercreek receive many calls a year where a customer attempts to restore their flooded basement on their own and then discovers mold weeks after. Unfortunately, mold damage will be more expensive than flood mitigation, especially when mold spreads to other areas of the property.
Our goal is to quickly restore your flooded basement and to ensure it doesn't flood again. That is why, when SERVPRO arrives at a flood damage situation, an IICRC certified professional starts by finding out what caused the basement flood in the first place. For example, most basement floods in Dayton result from a sump pump failure; if this is the case, it would be wise to purchase a new sump pump ASAP.
Contact us today if you need basement flood restoration services. SERVPRO of East Dayton/Beavercreek is available 24/7, 365 days a year!