by Will Rohleder, 24/7 Disaster Group – Tulsa’s # 1 Fire, Water & Storm Damage Restoration Contractor!
The IICRC (Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification) is the industry standard in respect to water, fire, smoke and mold damage restoration training, loss procedure and work protocols. One of the IICRC’s standards is the ANSI-approved (American National Standards Institute) S500-2015 4th Edition.
The S500 organizes water damage into 3 Categories and 4 Classes. The Category referring to origination and the Class referring to level of water damage.
Category 1: Water damage originating from a clean source. For example, a leaking valve stop under a sink.
Category 2: Water damage that may cause illness or discomfort if ingested. For example, washing machine water that has overflowed.
Category 3: Water damage that will cause severe illness or death if ingested. For example, a sewage backup.
Class 1: Small areas affected by water damage that have a high saturation resistance, such as surface moisture on concrete. A small area of carpet may be wet.
Class 2: Larger area that might include saturated carpet in an entire room with water wicking up walls and starting to saturate structural or framing members.
Class 3: Entire rooms or structures have water damage from top down. Ceilings, walls, insulation, flooring all saturated, water levels on floor can be measured in inches or feet.
Class 4: Building materials with very high saturation resistance are affected. Masonry, hardwood flooring, and even HVAC ductwork holding large amounts of moisture. Class 4 is a specialty drying situation.
The proper classification of the Category and Class of water damage is the first step to completing a successful dry down. 24/7 Disaster Group has the most knowledgeable techs and staff in Tulsa to successfully classify, mitigate and restore your property from a water damage event. Once classified, psychrometric calculations will be charted to determine the right “HAT” for the job: Industry slang for Humidity, Airflow and Temperature, all of which will be manipulated to achieve a specific dry down time with specific moisture points/percentages.
The psychrometric chart created for the job will have a variety of information for each part of the “HAT”… specific humidity, vapor pressure, dew point, etc., all of which are quantified with thermo hygrometers, moisture meters and devices to determine the correct equipment and sizing needed to dry down the environment and affected materials.
Each piece of equipment is part of the “HAT” manipulation fit for the job: heat injection equipment can be used to add energy to a wet material in order to raise the temperature to increase the rate of evaporation; correctly sized dehumidification equipment will remove the moisture from the air creating the correct grain depression over time to balance the relative humidity; air mover placement removes unbound (surface moisture) on materials allowing the release of bound moisture at a more rapid rate; AFD’s (aka air scrubbers) with HEPA filters are used to remove harmful airborne contaminants in CAT 2 and CAT 3 losses.
To boil it down, there is a science to drying and that’s just the start; throw in some mold, maybe a server room, chemical laboratory, or an open business with customers… then the fun begins!
Speaking of a complicated water damage loss in Tulsa it is important for commercial business owners and property managers to have a pre-disaster plan in place to know how to respond to water damage. 24/7 Disaster Group offers 24/7 plan to our Tulsa and surrounding area customers for water damage response. Our techs will become very familiar with your building or facility by touring the facility, loading all building plans and related documents into our software system and create a plan of attack with those responsible for the facility. Our techs will evaluate your property, know the high response priority areas, such as IT rooms, server rooms, electronically dense areas, locations of mechanical rooms and even utility shut off locations. The faster the response and mitigation of water damage to your Tulsa facility the faster your facility is back open. With this pre-disaster knowledge of your facility we are able to inspect and check off these high priority areas. Lets take a quick look at a water loss in an office building. If the responding contractor is not familiar with the facility it might take an extra 10 minutes or up to hours to check off the high priority areas. 24/7 Disaster Group will already know where to go first and how to minimize any potential secondary damage to these areas of the facility. This results in less down time from water damage and saving potentially tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in replacement and down time costs.
24/7 Disaster Groups staff and techs have extensive experience in all water damage restoration projects ranging from small residential water leaks from water heaters or frozen and burst pipes, to multi-level high rise commercial building water damage from fires and fire suppression systems. No matter what size of facility, 24/7 Disaster Group can handle it. In the panic of a large water damage loss it is important to remain calm and this is what 24/7 Disaster Group excels at. You will not find us running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out what to do. We will evaluate the full extent of the loss, formulate a long term or complete dry down plan from a water leak, while at the same time dispatching work crews to complete the most crucial work scopes until the water damage is under control and the facility is being properly dried down.
Once the facility has been dried down, 24/7 Disaster Group can complete any repairs from small remodeling to new ground up construction. 24/7 Disaster Group has completed thousands of residential and commercial projects from water damage ranging from remodels, historic renovations, new construction of homes and office buildings to industrial site and installation construction. So no matter what the disaster, 24/7 Disaster Group is ready to help with your water damage restoration in Tulsa and the surrounding communities.