Commercial Water Loss

3/1/2024 (Permalink)

Throughout the year, you probably don’t think about how many gallons of heated water you use in your home, business, or commercial building you are in.  A water heater is the unsung hero of hot showers, clean dishes, sanitary surfaces, clean hands; the list goes on.  These water heating units are sometimes taken for granted, but when they fail or malfunction, a solution can be difficult to attain.  That is why SERVPRO® exists, to bring a solution to a catastrophe and get things back to normal as soon as possible. 

 Last month, we got a call from a very close commercial building with quite a predicament.  A water heater had failed, gushing gallons upon gallons of water throughout 3 businesses in a strip mall, putting them out of commission for the foreseeable future a that location.  Thankfully, each business had a contingency plan and was able to make do with other spaces at other locations.  In this instance, they were lucky that there was a place for them to go however, that is not always the case.

 We arrived on the scene and ensured that a plumber was available to fix the issue.  Then we extracted the water out of the carpet in each unit.  Thankfully, there wasn’t any pad under the carpet or a basement for multiple floors to be affected, but this also allowed the water to spread out into a larger radius from the source of the insult.  Once extraction was completed, we removed the cove molding from the walls to allow us to drill drying holes in the insulated wall cavities.  This allowed us to get the drywall and insulation dry within a few days due to the equipment we set up. 

 We had to place a heating unit on one side due to a heat issue, which elevated the temperature and allowed the wet materials to release moisture via evaporation.  We created a drying chamber as well to help retain heat in the insulted areas of the unit.  Multiple dehumidifiers in each business also helped remove water vapor and reduce the vapor pressure within the structure, allowing the drying process to take off.  In a business week, we had everything dry and even had a repair plan in place to reapply the cove molding and touch up other areas of concern. 

By the end of the job, we had the building owner happy with the quick turnaround with drying, as well as the plan for reinstallation of the cove molding.  Those were the main areas of concern for the building owner, but we were able to consider those and produce results.  It was a great feeling for our technicians as well as the project manager; accomplishing a lot in a short time.  Today, each business is back up and running AND they have hot water again.