Helpful Tips if Your Contents Are Affected by Water

9/26/2019 (Permalink)

Follow these helpful tips in the event you have experienced any kind of water damage in your home or business. Following these are steps will help you protect your personal belongings.  Follow these steps as soon as possible. The longer your contents sit in water the more likely they are to experience damage.

While you wait for SERVPRO of Ottumwa / Oskaloosa to arrive follow these steps:

• Move any furniture with wooden feet or legs that you can safely carry out of the affected area.  You can use a non-porous object such as coasters, plastic wrap, Styrofoam, aluminum foil, etc, to block the furniture and lift the legs out of the water. At SERVPRO of Ottumwa / Oskaloosa, we use styrofoam blocks to lift furniture out of wet areas.  However, it is okay to be creative as a homeowner to find other household items that can serve the same purpose. The important thing is preventing water damage to your furniture.
• Store any belongings in plastic totes. If your belongings are stored in cardboard, move any wet cardboard boxes to a dry area. It’s also a good idea to dry off items that are wet before placing them in storage.
• Move electronics that have been saturated by water to a dry area and wipe down with a clean, dry rag.
• Take pictures! Our staff takes pictures for your insurance company when we arrive, but if you do happen to move anything or have something that is really damaged, make sure to take pictures of those items.

The more contents you can move yourself, the less damage you will have to your furniture and personal items. This will also help our SERVPRO team get to work immediately extracting water and setting drying equipment.