Have you ever wondered if the drying contractor you were working with on a water damage claim REALLY KNOWS what they were doing and why they are doing it?
If you haven't, YOU SHOULD!
There is one way to make sure the drying contractors you work with on your losses know what they are doing... See how they answer these questions!
1. What extraction tool do you use?
o When?
There are many different kinds of extraction tools. The most common is the "carpet cleaning wand". This wand comes with all truck mounted units when they are bought so naturally it is the most popular. If you are going to dry the carpet and pad in place, you must have a self-propelled extractor that you ride. The carpet cleaning wand is only effective on glue down carpet. It is easier to extract then to evaporate and this is why the extraction tool is so important.
2. How many CFM does your truck mount / portable extraction unit have?
Either a truck mount unit or a portable extraction unit that can outperform a truck mount is preferable. It is also important to know that for every foot of 2" vacuum hose you have connected you lose 1 CFM. Water should never be extracted with a 1 ½" hose. When the hose is reduced by ½" the amount of vacuum is reduced by 1/3. This is very critical when trying to dry the carpet and pad in place. Any reduction in vacuum will reduce the amount of water that is pulled out. This will further increase the drying time.
NOTE: IT IS 500% EASIER TO EXTRACT THAN IT IS TO EVAPORATE!
3. When do you float carpet and why do you need to float carpet?
o If leaving the carpet in a structure, how do you dry it?
Floating carpet can cause it to delaminate or to fray at the edges. If carpet is allowed to bounce up and down on the tack strip, the edges will fray and you just bought carpet. What if your restoration company could dry carpet and pad in place and reduce the cost of your claims. Reducing the cost of your claims is our goal. Since carpet and pad is the majority of the cost on many claims, by drying the carpet and pad in place along with the rest of the structure, we can drastically reduce the cost of your claims.
Floating the carpet is a thing of the past and should almost never be done. It will actually slow down the drying time by floating the carpet.
4. When is carpet most susceptible to delamination?
o Wet or dry?
Most of the time, delaminated carpet is the result of the way it is handled while wet. Carpet is 70 - 80% weaker when it is wet and thus it can delaminate very quickly in a water damage situation. If the carpet and pad are left down to dry and not disturbed, the chances of delamination are almost none. There have been tests done by the carpet mills that show after a carpet has been wet and dried, in a reasonable amount of time, the carpet is actually stronger than before.
5. What kind of dehumidifier(s) do you use?
o And why?
There are four different types of dehumidifiers used in the restoration industry. In my opinion, only two of them can actually dry a structure rapidly. If one of the first two style of dehumidifiers are used it is a waste of money and time.
1. Standard Refrigerants - Homeowners and professionals, in some cases, use low capacity standard refrigerants. They are not built for the excessive transportation involved in commercial usage. When temperatures drop below 68°F, ice will start to form on the coils, as the temperature drops, eliminating any dehumidification. These dehumidifiers are only capable of pulling the grains of moisture inside the drying chamber down to 55-60 gpp's (grains of moisture per pound of air). At this point, dehumidification will stop. The energy efficiency is about 2-3 pints per kilowatt.
2. Conventional Refrigerants - Conventional refrigerants have a "defrost" cycle. Heat pipes in this refrigerant are a pair of coils sandwiched around the evaporator of a refrigeration system. They contain refrigerant and transfer heat around the evaporator without the use of compressors or capillary tubes to prevent icing. The warm air that enters the evaporator is cooled by the first heat pipe. This absorbed heat travels to the second heat pipe, which is cooled by the air leaving the compressor. All this means is that the dehumidifier will not freeze up in temperatures as low as 33°F. They work exactly like a standard refrigerants otherwise. They also, can only pull the gpp's down to 55-60.
3. Low Grain Refrigerants (LGR) - The incoming air is pre-cooled by re-directing air leaving the evaporator back through the inlet air chamber. This pre-cooling is what makes LGR's work so efficiently. The heat transfer is accomplished without additional energy consumption. LGR's pull the grains of moisture down to 32-35 gpp's. They also contain a defrost cycle. There are two types of LGR's on the market today. Heat pipe design with an energy efficiency of 3-5 pints/kilowatt and the recuperative design with an energy efficiency of 5-7 pints/kilowatt. As you can tell, the recuperative design is much more efficient in the amount of energy it pulls and in the amount of water it pulls. The LGR's with the recuperative design will actually pull less electricity than most conventional dehumidifiers, blow more air, and pull more water.
In 2005 the Phoenix Corporation came out with a Low Grain Refrigerant that can also operate efficiently in high heat. The Phoenix 200 HT. This is the most efficient refrigerant dehumidifier on the market today. In May 2006 Phoenix introduced a performance amplifier that will sit on top of their 200 Max's and 200 HT's. The performance amplifier will increase the efficiency of the dehumidifier from 40 to 400%. These two new products together will allow us to dry structures even faster than we were before and tear up less of the structure in the process.
4. Desiccant dehumidifiers - take water out in the form of a gas. Desiccants work best outside the drying chamber and in cold temperatures. Desiccants do not work well in high temperatures. They can pull the grains of moisture down to 10-15 gpp's or lower. Most desiccants used in the restoration industry contain silica gel. This is a highly absorbent compound. Desiccants work well when drying a crawl space, wood floor, large structure, etc. When drying a crawlspace with a desiccant then you would never want to positively pressure the crawlspace. Since desiccants can be set up positive, negative, or neutral you must know how and why to set one up properly. Even though there is no better dehumidifier than a desiccant only about 1% of the drying companies own any. There are three main reasons:
o The cost of buying a desiccant is generally much more expensive than the cost of several refrigerants.
o The electrical requirements are usually such that they require an electrician for hook up.
o The time it takes to set up a desiccant is greater than the time it takes to set up a refrigerant dehumidifier.
6. How do you determine how much dehumidification you need?
First of all, we like to create as small of a drying chamber as possible so that we can use the least amount of equipment possible. This is done by the following:
o Closing doors
o Putting up Plastic to separate areas
o Make sure all doors and windows are closed
After making a drying chamber then figure up the amount of cubic feet of air to be dried. You can then determine what size and how many dehumidifiers will be necessary to dry the job. There is a chart included on the next page that has the formula for figuring how many dehumidifiers and what style are needed.
7. How do you determine how many fans are needed on a job?
Fans should be placed every 12 -16 feet in a circular motion around the room. They should be placed as close to the wall as possible at a 45 degree angle. Doors should be removed from the hinges so that air circulation does not get trapped behind the door. When carpet is involved one fan can be placed in the middle of the room on a stand pointing down.
8. What type of meters are used?
o Floors
o Sub-floors
o Walls
o Psychrometric Readings
o Infrared Thermometer
There are a variety of meters on the market today. You can test building materials with pinless meters or meters that have pins. The pinless meters are preferable because they do not damage the wall in the process of checking for moisture. There are also various other meters such as infrared thermometers, hygrometers, moisture probes for carpet, hammer probes for checking wood floors, etc. A good drying contractor will have many different types of meters and will know how to use them.
9. Do you use psychrometrics on EVERY drying job?
o If so, what does psychrometry tell you about your job?
Using psychrometrics on EVERY drying job will tell you if the job is set up to dry. It will not tell you if it is dry or not. If you are keeping a psychrometric chart on every job it will tell you many different things:
o Whether or not the dehumidifiers are pulling water and functioning properly
o If you have a drying chamber
o If you have enough equipment
o Whether or not the A/C is pulling water
o Shows how the equipment is performing in relation to what is happening outside and in the unaffected areas
10. If there is moisture under vinyl, how do you dry it?
o How do you dry behind vinyl wallpaper or a vinyl floor?
To dry the floor under the vinyl most of the times it is necessary to remove the vinyl. To dry the wall behind vinyl wallpaper, most of the time you will need to remove it. However, sometimes you can get to the wall by removing the baseboards and blowing air up in the wall. It will even dry faster if you are able to let the air out at the top of the wall. This will allow the wet air out of the wall while you are blowing in more dry air from the bottom, thus drying the wall extremely fast.
BONUS:
How often do you check your water damage jobs?
It is important to check the jobs at least once every 24 hours. There will be fans that need to be moved around and questions from the homeowner that need to be addressed. We check all water damage jobs at least once a day. This includes weekends and holidays. Jobs that are close to us will sometimes be checked two or three times a day. These jobs usually dry faster than a job across town. If a company does nothing else we have previously discussed they can still speed up the job by just checking it every day.
Thanks To : Choose Shop
