How to Dry Water Damaged Structural Components of Your New Orleans Home

4/21/2022 (Permalink)

We remove water damaged carpet and padding and any other water damaged materials.

Water Damage Teams in New Orleans Talk About Problems With Drying Exterior Walls

Plumbing failures happen pretty often in New Orleans, and a small crack inside one of your water pipes can spill hundreds of gallons of H2O into your house in a short period. Once moisture starts to leak into the interior of your home, building materials and many of your contents can become the victim of water damage. In some more extreme situations, saturated building materials must be removed and replaced. Whenever our SERVPRO technicians mitigate water damage, we work towards drying out and saving materials as opposed to removing and replacing them.  

The applied structural drying or ASD process can save you and your insurance company money during the restoration process. Also, when mitigating water damage in New Orleans, our SERVPRO team knows that drying out items can cause less disturbance to the building's occupants than tearing down walls does. However, if building materials lose their structural integrity once they get saturated, replacing items is necessary.  

During many plumbing failure situations, many items such as your carpet and drywall become water damaged. Our water restoration technicians or WRTs at SERVPRO can usually dry out these items using air movers to circulate air in the building and dehumidifiers to remove moisture from the air. However, some building materials like exterior walls can be challenging to dry out.  

Most exterior walls include a layer of insulation. The insulation is installed to trap heat inside a structure, but it can also work as a barrier to prevent air getting pushed into exterior walls. When insulation gets wet, the R-value drops, and the material must get removed.  

However, while working with fiberglass insulation, the air is pushed through the material, and exterior walls can be dried and saved. In some situations, our technicians drill holes on the bottom and top of your drywall so that air can circulate inside your wall cavities and dry out your exterior walls.  

If your house ever suffers from a plumbing failure, it is wise to call SERVPRO of The New Orleans Westbank at (504) 348-7526 as soon as you notice you have a problem.