Do You Have Water Damaged Documents? SERVPRO Can Help!

4/25/2022 (Permalink)

Keep your Documents Safe by Following these Tips.

No matter how many precautions you take to protect it, your Rocky Mount, NC, commercial building is always susceptible to water damage. Unfortunately, water and excess moisture can result from many different occurrences, most of which are out of your control, including:

• Flooding from heavy rain
• Fire sprinklers activating
• Water pipe bursting
• Roof leaking

It doesn't help that most of your contents are probably not waterproof. It doesn't take much water to inflict severe damage on some materials, particularly paper-based items like essential documents and irreplaceable photos and artwork. Fortunately, all hope is not lost for some of these priceless materials, thanks to SERVPRO and its state-of-the-art document restoration techniques.

What Are SERVPRO's Restoration Methods for Water-Damaged Documents?

Time is not your friend when it comes to the mingling of water and paper-based materials. Every second counts, and SERVPRO's skilled technicians and industrial equipment go to great lengths to restore anything possible. These extraordinary document drying methods include:

1. Proactive Digitizing

To avoid as much devastation as possible from a water disaster, you can hire SERVPRO's professionals to digitize your photographs and important paper documents before anything happens to them. Digitizing can allow you to go completely digital to save on physical storage space in your office by decreasing the number of paper files.

They can also simply serve as backup copies. You should keep the digital copies in an off-premises location, including the cloud, to ensure their protection in the case of a disaster at your commercial building.

2. Vacuum Freeze-Drying

SERVPRO's vacuum freeze-drying is a unique process called sublimation that vaporizes solids (i.e., ice) so that the liquid state can be avoided. This method is beneficial because standard drying methods must concentrate on drying liquids, which is what initially caused the damage to the documents. Paper dried using a traditional document restoration method will often incur additional water damage during the restoration process.

The National Archives and Records Administration approves this method. The Library of Congress uses vacuum freeze-drying to dry the one-of-a-kind historical documents and books that it houses.

3. Cleaning and Gamma Irradiation Disinfecting

Gamma irradiation is an excellent technique SERVPRO water damage restoration professionals use to sterilize paper-based materials. Materials that have come into contact with toxic chemicals or sewage will benefit from the gamma irradiation disinfecting process.

4. Deodorizing Using Archival MicroChamber Paper

After thoroughly drying water-damaged paper-based materials, technicians use a deodorization process. This technique uses Archival MicroChamber paper to eliminate lingering musty odors or other foul smells (e.g., smoke). This unique paper is constructed from 100% cotton and is also helpful in removing odors from photographs. Often, technicians will also use activated charcoal to remove odors.

5. Re-jacketing

If you've ever had a book severely damaged by water, you know the frustration and devastation of seeing it fall apart before your very eyes. SERVPRO's technicians can not only completely dry a book, but also put a new cover on it to keep it bound.

SERVPRO offers several outstanding document restoration services that can be beneficial if your business endures a water disaster. Its talented technicians are ready and willing to help at a moment's notice.