We are available 24/7 for all restoration services. Please call us on 1300 677 823.
Effective removal of standing water will significantly affect the amount of drying equipment and the time required to return the building and contents to equilibrium moisture content. Effective extraction will also ensure less destructive methods of restoration are required.
Surface drying of carpet underlay and surface water from building materials such as timber and concrete.
Drying of water already bound in materials. To assist in the third phase of drying of water damage property, knowledge of how materials dry is of great importance and how drying actually takes place within a building. Different methods, knowledge and tools are required to get the energy required to the bound water to ensure phase change.
Air movers are used to facilitate evaporation by removing the boundary layer of humid air from around the wet surface. Air movers rapidly supply dryer air directly to the wet surface and thereby lower the vapour pressure at the surface which facilitates faster evaporation. The more moisture a material contains the faster the water will evaporate. When using air movers alone, greater evaporation rates require more airflow to maintain the lower vapour pressure across the surface.
Air movement creates thermal loss (cools down). Cooler air and cooler surface materials means that less energy is transferred to the moisture molecules which does not give them sufficient energy to make the phase change required to escape the material.
Large quantities of air movers create a lot of heat energy (BTUs). In theory the heat created by the air movers aids in the drying process as the heat energy is transferred to the water molecules and surfaces thereby giving the energy required to make the phase change. The problem with excess heat is that often the BTUs created by the air movers can generate temperatures that are outside of the efficient operating ranges of refrigerant dehumidifiers.
Air movement is used to create evaporation. Air will hold a limited amount of moisture before the air becomes saturated and cannot hold any more moisture (referred to as “dew point”). Dehumidification is used to remove moisture from the air lowering the vapour pressure, so that the equipment used to create air movement, can continue to facilitate moisture evaporating from the wet structure or contents.