One thing that your home, office, and residential or commercial rental property all have in common is the potential to suffer from water damage. Whether it comes from plumbing or a storm, water can slowly or suddenly cause major damage to almost any type of structure.

If your property does encounter water damage, it may be tempting to just let it air dry and hope for the best. After all, it’s just water, and most property owners don’t want unnecessary expenses. Unfortunately, choosing to delay action and air dry your water damaged home or office can cause many dangerous, expensive problems.

As professional water damage restoration contractors, we have seen these unfortunate situations many times. In this article, we will explain why most water damage needs more help than air-drying and waiting. Here is what you need to know.

Time is Dangerous

If you choose to skip professional help and air dry your water damaged property, it’s true that it will eventually dry out. However, it will take a long time and cause more issues to occur during the drying process. If too much time goes by, the moisture remaining in the floors, walls, and fixtures will degrade all materials and compromise their condition. It also allows quick growing mold to spread throughout the damp areas. A long drying process will result in more problems, replacement costs, and downtime.

Extraction and Removal are Critical

When you choose to let water damage air dry, you won’t have the advantage of being able to extract as much of the water as possible right away. At McMahon, our team uses professional-grade vacuums and pumps to extract excess water from porous materials like floors, furniture, and carpets. We will also remove any wet carpet, furniture, and fixtures that get in the way of extraction.

Evaporating the Water to Dehumidify Your Property

Porous materials like wood framing, flooring, subfloors, fixtures, furniture, and drywall become saturated with water during a flood, so it’s important to dry them out as quickly as possible to stop the growth of bacteria and mold. We use industrial fans and air movers to speed up the evaporation process. Because it’s removing water, the evaporation process increases the humidity levels in your property. We will also fight this by removing air moisture with tools like heaters and industrial dehumidifiers. All of these tools lead to a much better result than air-drying.

Advanced Monitoring Leads To The Best Results

If you are trying to air-dry a water damaged property on your own, the only tools you will have access to are your senses. When we complete our water damage restoration process, we take continuous moisture readings to monitor our progress. We use advanced moisture and temperature meters to assess the moisture level in the remaining materials, in order to find and target even invisible moisture.

Disinfection Ensures A Safe, Clean Home

If you can extract the water and start drying your property right away, you will limit the chances that mold and bacteria have to grow. A professional water damage restoration company will also disinfect the damaged areas to further prevent the growth of mold and to remove any harmful contaminants and microbes. Without this help, you could be putting all of the occupants of your property at risk.

Get Professional Help You Can Trust With Water Damage

Water damage to your home can be a confusing situation – it may seem simple to clean it up and let it air dry on its own, but this choice can have disastrous consequences. It’s incredibly important to get water damage clean-up help from a professional to ensure a thorough job.  Water can easily seep into unseen areas and soak into surfaces, with invisible moisture leading to mold growth and bigger problems like saturated drywall and ruined subfloors. Plus, the longer water is allowed to sit, the more damage it causes.

If you have discovered water damage at your home, office, or any type of property, take quick action and get help from McMahon Services and Construction today. We have the local Chicago area team, tools, and knowledge to tackle any issue, and get your life back to normal as quickly and safely as possible.