Caring For Your Belongings After an Emergency

3/9/2021 (Permalink)

Standing water damage in a residential living room threatens to damage home electronics and other precious belongings.

SERVPRO experts understand that your home or commercial property is more than just a structure; fire, water, and storm damage can affect your belongings as much as they affect the structure itself.

So what do you do to care for your belongings after an emergency? The answer is multi-faceted.

Contents Restoration

First, with the help of SERVPRO of Central Oklahoma City experts, assess what items can be restored. Our teams can pretest your belongings to determine what can be restored via one of a handful of safe and effective cleaning methods.

They include:

• Dry Cleaning - Used to clean light residues or to pre-clean items that will ultimately need a deeper cleaning.
• Wet Cleaning - Used to remove moderate to heavy residues.
• Spray and Wipe - Effective for items that cannot withstand wet or dry cleaning.
• Foam Cleaning - Used for upholstery fabrics that might shrink or bleed if cleaned by other means.
• Abrasive Cleaning - Involves deep scrubbing to create agitation of the surface being cleaned. 
• Immersion Cleaning - Belongings are dipped into a bath of the cleaning product.

SERVPRO experts always seek to “restore” rather than “replace” whenever possible. This not only helps preserve your precious keepsakes but can also save you the money to replace items not covered by your insurer.

Learn more about our restoration cleaning methods.

Electronics 

Of course, some of your most vulnerable possessions when water damage strikes are your electronics, and water-damaged electronics can present a dangerous hazard in your home or commercial property. 

First and foremost do not attempt to turn on or operate any electrical device that you suspect has been damaged by water. Allow an expert to coordinate the restoration of impacted electronics like televisions, and computers. We work with qualified electronics technicians who are trained to safely clean and inspect your damaged electronics.

And when it comes to salvaging water-damaged electronics, time is of the essence. Those experts act swiftly, starting with a thorough cleaning of the exterior to prevent further corrosion and damage. However, to reiterate, urgency should never take precedence over personal safety. Our teams at SERVPRO of Central OKC are faster to any disaster, and we take calls 24 hours a day.

Documents & Photographs

Important documents and photographs should be handled with great care if damaged. Mishandling of these items can exacerbate damage beyond the point of restoration. 

While some documents might not be restored to perfect condition, SERVPRO experts can do a tremendous amount to minimize damage by employing a combination of…

• Air Drying
• Dehumidification
• Freezer Drying
• Vacuum Freeze Drying
• Vacuum Thermal Drying

Learn more about our document restoration services.

Don’t Forget

At SERVPRO of Central OKC we understand the stress that comes with recovery from an emergency. Our experts can help ease the worry and confusion during the recovery process by offering our Contents Claim Inventory Service (CCIS).

Learn more about the Contents Claim Inventory Service.