Flood recovery – can you know how dry the place was before the flood?

The incredibly wet winter is a lead news story again today and it’s likely we will see more disturbing pictures of shattered lives in the coming days. This blog is a tiny foot note pitched at some of the surveyors, loss adjusters and insurance people that are at the forefront of recovery this winter.

The time immediately after the flood is critical. Delays, hesitation or the wrong actions in the hours and days after the flood recedes can affect the speed of drying, the extent of damage and the relationship with those trying to survive the inundation. ?

The usual approach is to get busy quickly. Strip out and deliver the dehumidifiers and blowers before anyone has had a chance to accuse the insurer of delay.

The stated aim of the flood drying firm will be to get the building to its “pre-flood” moisture content and allow recovery to take place. My issue is that no surveyor, drying specialist, contractor or insurance agent can ever know the moisture condition of the building before it was flooded. How then, can they ever know how dry they are trying to get it with all that kit?

In very modern buildings it easy and safe to assume that ripping out finishes and allowing a bit of time to let the structure become ‘dry-ish’ will suffice. With older buildings, assumptions made about the buildings “normal” air dry state can vary costly in time, energy, good will and resource.

Knowing and understanding that older building have had a life, that they will have been impacted by time, fashion, DIY, poor repairs, adaptation, alteration, love and abuse is incredibly valuable.

Rather than this become a long and withering guide to flood recovery, I would like to offer a single tip to anyone dealing with the recovery of older buildings.

On the day of your first visit, take samples and subject them to gravimetric testing.

This won’t slow recovery or elicit delays, but it will help define drying objectives properly and could save huge amounts of time and money.

Using gravimetric analysis is the only way for the professional to really understand the moisture that they see in the walls and floors after a flood. This method is undertaken in the lab but reports three things:

1.?????? Total water in the sample

2.?????? The free water in the sample.

3.?????? The air dry (equilibrium) moisture content of the sample.

Gravimetric testing is usually only used at the end of a drying cycle when the recovery firm is struggling and everyone is getting fed up because they can’t deliver a drying certificate.

Knowing in advance that some building elements cannot exist below a base moisture level when in its normal air dry state, means that you don’t spend months drying a structure only for it to appear to wet up again when the heaters and dehumidifiers are switched off.

Establishing scientifically determined drying targets that are right for the individual building will allow intelligent specifications for repair and recovery too. Strategies that take into account the characteristics of the principal structure, whilst possibly introducing measures that could add to the future flood resilience of the building, must be a winner for everyone.

If you need help with sensitive, tricky or troublesome flood recovery, please do get in touch.

https://hodgsonconsulting.co.uk/