Removing water and cleaning up after minor flooding in your home might seem like a simple task. After all, you’ve mopped up more spills than you can count; this is just the same thing on a bigger scale, right? In reality, flood cleanup is much more complex than you might think, and there are many benefits to working with water damage contractors in Lawrence, KS, to get the job done, rather than trying to do it yourself. Keep reading to learn what those benefits are.
Avoid Potential Hazards
The hazards associated with a water-damaged home go far beyond a slippery floor. Here are just a few of the potential hazards you could encounter during your cleanup efforts:
- Unseen structural damage – Water-damaged floors can often collapse unexpectedly. If you step in the wrong place (or just happen to be standing under a weak, water-logged portion of your ceiling), you could be seriously injured by a sudden collapse.
- Contaminated floodwaters – If your water damage is caused by natural flooding, you’re not dealing with clean water like when a pipe bursts. That floodwater brings in many contaminants, including bacteria, parasites, and pollutants. These are hazardous to your health if you enter those waters to try to clean them yourself.
- Dangerous molds – Mold can take a while to grow, but after a few days of cleanup efforts, you’re likely to begin seeing it in those still-damp areas of your home. Mold spores can aggravate respiratory conditions like asthma and allergies, and certain types of mold (most notably, black mold) can be dangerous to everyone, regardless of their respiratory health.
- Damaged electrical lines – The structure of your home isn’t the only thing that can be damaged; electrical lines are also often damaged in a flood. Make sure all power to your property is shut off before you go anywhere near the floodwater.
With so many potential hazards involved with water cleanup, do you really want to try to go it alone? It’s really not risking your health and safety to save on the cost of using a water restoration expert.
Save More of Your Property
The key to successful restoration is to act quickly—but you can only do so much when you’re trying to clean up the mess on your own. If you don’t get the water cleared out and things dried quickly enough, the damage can get worse, and you may no longer be able to save some of your items. For example, if standing water isn’t removed rapidly, it will continue to soak into the floor and drywall, damaging those materials further. Personal items like books and photos could be salvaged if they’re dried quickly and well, but if you don’t get to them fast enough, they could be lost forever.
By contacting a contractor quickly, you can get the water removed and prevent further damage, as well as saving more of your personal property.
Avoid Unnecessary Costs
You might think you’re saving money by doing it on your own, but think about the costs associated with what we mentioned above. If using a water removal expert can save your flooring or result in less remodeling, isn’t it worth the cost? What about preventing serious mold growth in walls that weren’t properly dried out, saving you the cost of ripping open those walls to remove the mold later?
Ultimately, it’s a better option to let us handle residential water damage in Lawrence, KS, so give us a call right away to avoid more serious damage.