If your Orlando, FL office or workplace has suffered water damage, some of your valuable documents and records have likely been soaked. Because paperwork is the lifeblood of most modern businesses, this has probably rocketed your stress levels and left you wondering what to do. Fortunately, you no longer have to simply air out wet documents and hope for the best. With modern restoration techniques, you can salvage many, if not all of your important paperwork items.
1. Vacuum Freeze-Drying
As you may know, paper is created by combining and fixing tiny bits of wood pulp. When water comes into contact with paper, these particles begin to disengage from one another. Vacuum freeze-drying is a method of document drying that prevents this process from occurring. Frozen documents are placed in a low pressure environment and heat energy is added so that warming ice skips directly from a solid to gaseous form.
2. Gamma Sterilizing
Unfortunately, your water damaged items may have become a breeding ground for all kinds of undesirable bacterias and fungi. By irradiating wet documents, you can safely get rid of any unwanted organisms that might try to colonize them. This is best left to a professional, so you should contact someone who is experienced in document sterilization.
3. Document Digitization
Despite advances in restoration technology, the only way to truly ensure your valuable files survive indefinitely is by meticulously digitizing them. While this can be simple in the case of standard sized documents, a professional can help you to digitally store more complicated items, such as maps, films or x-rays. Even if you haven’t had a recent flooding event, you may want to digitize files so that you have backup copies of vulnerable physical ones.
Your files, records and photographs are some of the most important items you own. Treat wet documents as you would any other part of your commercial property by expertly restoring them so that you can get back to work.