When a flood hits, the best thing you can do is head for higher ground with the people and possession that you love. While you might be able to keep yourself and others safe through your evacuation, there’s no telling what you’re going to come home to once the waters recede and the rains stop. In the worst case scenario, you likely will have a home that’s almost unrecognizable due to the excessive water damage. Luckily, there are ways that you can combat this damage. To show you how, here are three tips for drying out your house after a flood.
Keep Yourself Protected
After a flood, the waters and damage that are left over can be very dangerous for you to face. Knowing this, it’s important that you take the necessary precautions to keep yourself and others safe as you attempt to clean up. According to Don Vandervort, a contributor to U.S. News and World Report, part of your safety includes staying out of the water as much as you can. Flood waters can be filled with hidden dangers, like toxicity, sewage, animals and more. Additionally, you should always wear the right gear when cleaning up after a flood, like waterproof boots, gloves, and a respirator mask.
Get The Air Circulating
As soon as you’re able to remove all the standing water, it’s now time to try to get everything as dry as you can as quickly as you can. To help with this, Caroline Mayer, a contributor to House Logic, advises that you get the air in your home moving as soon as you can. Through this circulation, be it from opening the windows or bringing in fans, you should be able to get your home to dry much faster. You should also do things like opening all the doors, including closets and cabinets, so that everything in your entire house has some air movement going through it. This will aid in everything drying out without any place being missed or overlooked.
Clean And Check For Mold
Once everything’s about dry, you should begin to assess the damage and clean up the mess as much as you can on your own. According to Jason Hargraves, this includes doing things like steam cleaning all of your flooring, sanitizing all your walls and baseboards, and checking out all your furniture for any mold that might be growing. If you’re not able to clean the mold and keep it from coming back, you’ll want to discard anything that continues to breed those mold spores.
To help you get your home back in order after a flood, consider using the tips mentioned above to next time you have standing water to deal with.