After the flooding in Northern New Jersey in January of this year, a lot of homes are left with water damage and no idea what to do about it. There are programs to help people who have been through a disaster like this such as flood assistance and restoration services and these can go a long way in restoring water damaged homes but even then, restoring water damage can become very expensive very quickly. A lot of water damage restoration you can also do on your own with no third party that will need to be paid. Compiled here are a couple of tips and tricks to help you restore the damage done without breaking the bank.
The first step is to immediately move everything you can to a dryer area. This includes furniture, rugs, low hanging curtains, and even carpet if need be. A great place to put these to dry might be a backyard, curb, or upstairs. Moving these things won’t do anything to restore water damage but it will contain it and make it less severe. After this is finished, your focus should be on getting rid of the water. You can use towels, buckets, pumps and amps muscle pumps, and anything else you have on hand to get rid of the water but your main goal needs to be to remove all of it. This will prevent any further damage being done to your home. After the water level is down, you will need to shovel out mud or silt from off of the floor. Once you are done with that it is a good idea to hose off any hard surfaces.
You will then need to make sure that everything is dry. You can open windows, run a fan, or a dehumidifier to do this but the faster you get everything dried the less likely you will be to get mold. When this is finished and everything is dry so that there is no chance of mold growth you will need to move on to disinfecting everything that came in contact with the contaminated water. Any hard surfaces need to be scrubbed with ¼ cup of bleach in a gallon of water. This will make sure there is not bacteria as well as ensure that there is no chance whatsoever that mold can grow. You may end up needing to cut out drywall that came in contact with the water. Drywall does not dry easily after being soaked and can be a breeding ground for mold.
The entire process can take up to 48 hours and will be a grueling process and it requires immaculate attention to detail. Every step needs to be followed in order to make sure that you are not going to get mold or rotting and your house can be safe even after a flood. Restoring water damage is very hard work and it is not a fast job. But if you need to do it on your own in order to save money it can be done.
