What You Can Do to Prevent Water Damage

You might not be able to stop a hurricane or a flood from causing water damage to your home, but what you can stop are a lot of things in your home that can cause the same kind of damage, just on a smaller scale. They are quite simple and although you might forget to do them from time to time, as long as you make sure to check at least every once in a while, you (and your wallet) will be better protected against the surprise expense of water damage remediation.

One of the most frequent offenders of water damage tends to be the water heater itself. This should be located somewhere on the lowest floor of your home and in a drain pan connected to a pipe or hose that drains back into the sewer. This will make sure that even if your water heater does burst or begins to leak slowly, the water will not go into the floor, but down the drain. Most water heaters should be located in the basement and a leaky water heater down there is not going to be as much of a problem as one on the second or even third level of a home.

Make sure you have your rain gutters cleaned out at the end of autumn when the leaves have stopped falling. Your rain gutters are what keep water from simply sliding off your roof and settling around the foundation of your home. Water that collects around your home’s foundation can cause it to sink into the ground and even though this is a slow process, it can do a significant amount of damage to your home’s value. The downspouts should also be clear of any debris and water channeled away from the foundation. Soil around the base of your home should also be at such an angle that water naturally flows away from it.

Keep an eye on the pipes or hoses that go to your dishwasher and your clothes washer in the laundry room. Hoses can develop weak spots over time and develop leaks that can leave you in a huge mess, especially if you happen to be away from home at the grocery store or a friend’s when the leak begins.

Water damage can also be prevented by not forgetting that you have bath water running or water running in the kitchen sink. Overflowing sinks and tubs account for a lot of damage like this and can coat your floor with more water than you think in a very short period of time.

Household Water Damage Prevention Tips

Water damage is something that no homeowner wants to have to deal with, but many times it is just a fact of life. Whether it is a flood, excessive rain, or even something as devastating as a hurricane, sometimes water damage cannot be helped, but what about the water damage that occurs to our homes that are simply accidents? Or something that we have just overlooked for far too long? There are quite a few things that you can to in order to keep water damage from impacting your pocketbook, but for them to have any affect, you have to remain vigilant.

Cleaning out your rain gutters as soon as the leaves stop falling in autumn is a pretty good idea. What your rain gutters do is keep the rain that falls on your roof from simply falling to the base of your home and settling there. Allowing water to settle around the base of your home will eventually cause it to sink into the ground, doing damage not only to the structure of the house, but also to the home’s value, as well. Another way to prevent this kind of slowly occurring damage is to make sure that the soil around the foundation of your home is piled up against the house at an angle so water drains away from the foundation naturally. Keep downspouts clear of leaves and sticks, as well, and make sure that the bottom of the downspout has gully that drains the water coming out of it away from the home.

Making sure the plumbing that leads to your dishwasher or to your clothes washer is of good condition. You should not have to replace these hoses very often, maybe around every 4 to 5 years, but hoses of poor quality can rupture and leave you with a huge mess, especially if you happen to be out of the home at the time it bursts. Clean up any spills as quickly as possible, but if the floor in your kitchen is hardwood, the best thing to do is just soak up whatever water you can with towels. If you have a vacuum used to draw water up, such as a carpet shampooer, you can use this to get some more of the water out. Do not use artificial heat to dry your floor, because this can cause the floor to buckle or cause what is called “cupping”.

Something else that you can do is install a vent in your bathroom and kitchen. This allows the steam that builds up from cooking or bathing to escape the house and not be absorbed by your walls and ceiling.

Your Laptop Hates Water

To anyone who owns a laptop, getting a soft drink or a glass of water anywhere near it is probably taboo, but if you are like me, then you probably keep something to drink near by at all times. You’d rather “risk it” than go thirsty, but this does not always have to be the case. While getting your laptop wet in any way can seriously damage it, there are ways to save it if you do happen to spill your drink or anything else onto the keyboard and subsequently, onto the hard drive, and etcetera. Unlike a desktop computer, the keyboard of a laptop is obviously located on top of the most important components of your computer: hard drive, memory, CD-ROM, and etcetera. Without these, your computer will not function.

The problem when you spill something onto your laptop is not with the actual liquid that you spill on it, although things that become sticky after they dry like soda or tea can be a hassle to clean up. The problem lies with the electricity that is running through your laptop at the time you spill the liquid onto it. It usually takes a few seconds for the liquid to get down into the electrical components of the laptop, so the first thing that you need to do if you spill something on your computer is to unplug it and take out the battery IMMEDIATELY. You must remove the electrical current from the laptop as quickly as possible in order to be able to save it.

After you remove the electrical current, the next thing that you have to do is to turn the machine upside down completely in order to keep the liquid from getting further into the shell of the laptop. This will keep it from coming into contact with your hard drive, memory, motherboard, and etcetera. You should allow the least amount of this liquid that comes into contact with those important components as possible, especially if it is an acidic liquid such as soda.

After you have drained as much of the liquid as possible out of it, collect some paper towels or just a normal towel and clean up any of the liquid from the outside of the machine.

At this point, depending on if you got the electricity removed from the unit in time, you could take it to a professional repairman or continue to repair the laptop yourself. The extent of the “repair” could be just allowing the unit to completely dry out or it could involve removing components and cleaning the sticky soda residue from them. Attempting to repair it yourself could possibly void your warranty for future damages, but a professional could be expensive.

Your Laptop and Water Damage

Putting a laptop and a soft drink onto the same surface is almost taboo to most people who own a laptop computer, even though most people who are at their computers or laptops for several hours a day will tell you that it is quite difficult to put in a full day’s work at the computer and not eat and drink almost at the same time. I keep a drink near me at all times and fortunately I have never spilled anything onto my beloved laptop, but there are many incidents where others have. Those who have only just purchased their first laptop will probably not know how to deal with water (or liquid) damage like this. There is a way to handle this situation and possibly save your machine, however.

Most water damage that is done to your laptop is usually caused by acidic beverages like soda or coffee, because they leave a sticky residue on anything they are spilled on. They also tend to cause corrosion on any metal contacts that they might touch on the motherboard, hard drive, and etcetera.

If you do spill something on your laptop, remove the power source as quickly as possible. This includes the A/C adapter and the battery, as well, because it is not the liquid alone that causes the problem. If a laptop or other electronic device has no electricity running through it when the liquid is spilled, it will likely be fine if you dry it out as soon as possible. However, an electric current running through a wet device is what causes the circuits to essentially fry and all software programming to be removed. Let a device such as a CD player that has become submerged in water dry out completely before you attempt to power it on. Remove the batteries until you are sure. This same principle can be applied to a wet laptop.

If you have merely spilled water onto it, then you might not have a big problem on your hands as long as you removed the electrical current from the device before the water sank deep into the device. If you have spilled soda or coffee into the device, then it will leave a sticky residue on the inside of your laptop.

After removing the electrical current, turn it over and allow the excess liquid to drain out. After you to this, wipe the outside with a cloth of some kind.

After this, you can take the machine to a professional repairman to make sure the inside is undamaged or if you have only spilled water into it, you can wait until it is completely dry. If you are absolutely sure that the inside components were not damaged by the electric current, turn it back on after you are sure the inside is dry.

Water Damage Prevention Tips

The kitchen and the bathroom are two of the most important rooms in your home and if you are conscious about what makes a home valuable, then you probably understand that these are also the two rooms that can add to or subtract from your home’s value the most easily. The conditions of the bathroom and kitchen are extremely important when you go to sell your home. These two rooms are often what make or break the sale of a home. When selling a commercial building, the kitchen is typically not a factor because most do not have them and even though all commercial buildings have bathrooms of some kind, the bathroom does not usually affect the sale. The presence of a bathroom is usually enough in these buildings.

You should do whatever you can to maintain the structural integrity of these two rooms even if you do not plan on selling your home. An unfortunate event may occur and you may have to sell your home to pay for it; in life, not much is ever certain.

How do you prevent water damage to these two rooms? Keep an eye on the plumbing in both rooms, for one. Under the sinks are pipes that can sometimes begin to leak or burst completely and sometimes the vinyl on our kitchen floor or the tile on our bathroom floor is not sealed completely. This allows water underneath and will soak your floor boards. Mold can start to grow as a result of this.

The overflowing of bath tubs and kitchen sinks is also a mildly common occurrence. Maybe you forgot the water was running or you just got pre-occupied talking on the phone, but the fact is that you can leave yourself in a mess pretty quickly. Clean up the water as quickly as you can.

Install a steam vent or fan in the kitchen and bathroom if possible. This will let the steam that comes from cooking dinner or taking a bath escape the room and not cling to your ceiling. Drywall absorbs water quite well and unfortunately, mold also will start to grow on your ceiling if this steam damage continues. Installing a vent in the ceiling will possibly be one of the best investments that you can make for both of these rooms.

Also keep a check on the water line that connects to the ice maker in your refrigerator, if you have one. Water leaks from these are not uncommon and ice that melts due to a power outage can also cause water damage, especially if you are not home to take care of the spill.

Salvaging Electronics from a Watery Grave

People say that electronic devices are sensitive to water and water damage, but this is only half true. Most people are almost certain that if they drop an electronic device into water or spill water on one that it is pretty much toast. What they do not typically understand is the fact that it is not the water alone that does the damage to the device, but it is the electricity running through it that causes the device to become unusable. In effect, the water acts as a conductor for electricity and fries the item’s circuit board and does away with most, if not all programming that it had before.

The key to saving most electronic devices from water damage and from essentially frying the circuit board is to remove it from the source of water and remove the electric current from it as quickly as possible. This means removing the battery or the A/C adapter immediately and turning the device over to allow the water to drain out of any openings that may exist in it. Cell phones are often fairly air and water tight, but this does not mean that water cannot get into them. Remove it from the liquid in under 20 seconds and you have a pretty good shot of saving it. If you leave it in much longer, the water will eventually seep inside past the keypad and onto the circuit board inside. This might not be a big problem if your phone happens to be off at the time that you drop it in the liquid, but unfortunately, most of these incidents occur when the phone is powered on and you are talking on it.

Whatever device you happen to drop into a liquid, if possible, you should place it in a bowl of uncooked rice. It should be left there overnight or even longer until you are sure that it is completely free of moisture on the inside. Do not attempt to power on your phone or re-insert the battery before all moisture is gone. All moisture must be gone from the device to be certain that it will be fine.

Devices that are dropped into muddy or sandy water can be complicated to clean, because of the grit and dirt that can get inside. This could involve completely taking apart the phone and using alcohol to clean it. Never use water to clean anything on a cell phone, whether it is on the inside or outside.

Salvaging a Watery Electronic Device

Whether you own a cell phone, CD player, laptop, or any other small electronic device, you probably know that letting such a device come into contact with a liquid surely means the sudden death of it. This is somewhat of a misunderstanding, simply because of the fact that it is not the water alone that makes water and electrical devices coming into contact with each other a dangerous thing for your item.

What makes water a bad thing to let get onto or into your electronic devices is whether or not electricity is running through it at the time of contact. It is the electricity that does the real damage and not the liquid itself. If you were to put a CD player or a cell phone that had no electrical current running through it into a puddle of normal water (not containing any dirt particles or sand or chemicals), then there would probably be next to no damage done to it, since most circuit boards are made of plastic and do not absorb water very well. Unfortunately, putting something like that into chemically treated or dirty water could cause more problems than just the water contact.

If you do happen to drop your cell phone or CD player into a bath tub or sink full of water, get it out of the water in less than 20 seconds in order to minimize the damage. Getting it out in under 20 seconds is important because it takes about that long for the water to get inside the item and to the item’s circuit board, especially if it as airtight as most cell phones are these days. Cell phones are not completely water tight, which is the reason for the time limit. Even if the phone is on, it can be saved if you get it out in time. Remove the battery as quickly as possible and lay it on the side with openings for the water to drain out, such as on the keypad if it was a cell phone.

Put the device into a bowl of uncooked rice at least overnight and this should absorb the majority of the water from both the inside and outside of it. Do not replace the battery or try to power on the device until you are certain that it is completely dry inside. Trying to turn it on could be exactly what does the damage that you are trying to avoid.