Date: March 19, 2019
Keeping vital documents and files is imperative for every institution or individual. This can be for future reference, historic, or administrative purposes. However, your most treasured documents can be negatively affected in the event of floods or fire. What happens then? Today, you can recover your documents whether the damage is small or extensive. The process of document recovery is even more successful if you prepare ahead and act on time.
Disaster planning
Disaster planning is the key to successful document restoration. It involves;
1. Enhance air circulation in a recovery room
It is vital that you stabilise the environment where you need to recover the documents. Ensure thorough air circulation in the room by opening all doors and windows. You can also use an HVAC system for enhanced air circulation.
2. Reduce humidity in the room
It is wise that you get rid of all sheets and plastic tarps in the room. This is because they often create a greenhouse environ that will make your recovery process a daunting task.
If possible, use a dehumidifier if you have someone to help you in the recovery process.
Reduce room temperatures to an average of 50 or 60 degrees. It helps to slow down the deterioration of your most treasured records and it ensures a smooth documents paper recovery.
The utmost damage to paper documents from floods or water occurs within 8 hours. This is why it is always recommended that you begin old document restoration as soon as it occurs. Assess the damage, stabilise the area and start the recovery process. This can be done through
Air Drying
Air drying is one of the best strategies that will help you to recover your documents successfully. This is more ideal for a small and large number of records. It also stabilises the environment while keeping your documents safe and free from harm.
Recovery process
Freezing
Freezing is also an ideal document recovery method that is widely used by document restoration companies. It works best when you are trying to recover many records that cannot be restored through air drying.
Recovery process
Remove all documents from the damaged area to the recovery area.
Arrange your documents through old document restoration services for you to transport them to freezer storage. Document recovery and restoration companies have highly efficient free dry chambers that you can use to dry your documents.
Avoid shrinking wrap wet boxes because you will damage their original shape once they are sent to the freezer storage.
Damaged paper can also be placed in a freezing chamber under an intense vacuum. This process is efficient because it extracts vapour from different documents and files. It is also an excellent method that works best on structural documents, but it should not be used on documents containing artwork.
For documents made of organic material, ensure they are kept in the cold storage immediately the damage occurs. It helps to prevent rapid growth of mould.
If the documents are waterlogged, it is wise that they are aligned and kept in a freezer at -18 degrees c. It helps you to recover the documents in their original shapes.
Most importantly, document preservation services can decontaminate the documents during the recovery process. This is imperative because often, flood waters carry harmful and deadly pathogens that can significantly damage your historic document restoration services.
Keep all restored documents safe and in the right files to avoid a mix up of useful information.
Old paper documents can become brittle or yellow over time. They may also fade or get damaged in the event of flood or fire incidences. True restoration is a challenging process but with the help of the best paper restoration services, you can always get the desired results.
Preservation
First, stabilise the temperatures and humidity to reduce the impact of water damage paper and further deterioration.
Store all documents in a dry and dark place and on a flat surface. Limit exposure to light by all possible means and handle water damaged paper using gloves.
Cleaning
Cleaning is an important part of documents repair. Remover all crumbs on paper to get rid of all surface dirt, foxing and other stains caused by water or fire damage.
When cleaning, you need to be extremely careful, especially when you are handling sensitive documents such as diploma restoration. Avoid aggressive methods because they thin and tear paper leading to more damage.
If you are not well conversant with the document recovery process, it is imperative that you seek help from a well-reputed records recovery services company. Professionals understand how delicate a documents recovery process can be and they will always employ the right strategies to safe and successful recovery. What’s more, record recovery services experts have the best tools to;
When disaster hits, your treasured family photos can also be damaged. While it can be quite a challenging task to recover water damaged photos, using the right recovery process or hiring an expert can make the whole process successful. You can save and restore water damaged photos by employing the following tips:
It is highly recommended that you dry the photos inside a clean and wet room because wind and sun can curl the photos quickly damaging the pictures.
You also need to clean each water damage photo or wet photo in clean water, stack the wet photo in a sheet of wax paper, and seal using the right plastic bag. This is an efficient method of restoring water damaged photos if you do not have time to dry out all the photos.
If possible, you can also freeze water damage picture, it helps to inhibit the damage. Furthermore, it allows you to defrost, separate and air dry water-damaged photograph.
Remove water damaged paper immediately to prevent the growth of moulds, pictures sticking together and to ensure the restoration process is successful.
Always start by removing wet photographs that have no negatives to minimize damages and for smooth water damaged photos restoration
If your pictures are framed, gently remove them from the flood to avoid photo emulsion on water damage paper. Keep the photo and the glass intact and while holding both, carefully separate the water damage picture from the glass.
A point to note is that water damaged photographs restoration process involves careful removal of marks, stains and tears and enhancing the overall brightness, colour balance, contrast and every detail that has been captured in the water damaged photo.
Therefore, take time to learn how to fix water damaged paper and restore water damaged photos in a way that brings back beautiful memories. You can also hire professional damaged photographs restoration service providers for expert help. Professionals will restore faded water damage pictures, remove objects or unwanted sights from the background of water damaged photos.
For water damaged pictures that have microfilm, you can always clean them using a soft cloth moistened in a microfilm cleaning film. If the photos are charred, a professional photographs restoration service provider can copy and restore the photos using expert tools and processes. Therefore, in the event of floods or fire accident, you can contact the best documents and files restoration service provider immediately to mitigate the impact.
Most importantly, contact The Alternative Accommodation, for your emergency accommodation when you are adversely affected by floods or fire. The company offers swift and amazing accommodation solutions that match your needs.
