Can You Restore Water Damaged Concrete Floors On Your Own?

water damage restoration atlanta While some modern homes use polished concrete for a sleek industrial look, almost all homes have some concrete floors somewhere. Not only are they in the garage and patios, concrete is usually used as the slab under the carpet, tiles, or wood flooring. After water damage happens in your home, you may have more cleanup that you expected.

After a water event in your home, you know to remove mushy drywall and soaked carpets along with ruined possessions. When homeowners, or inexperienced contractors, mop up to clean the mess, the moisture remaining in the concrete floors is ignored. Folks then continue to restore their room and even replace it with new flooring. In less than a year, they may discover more trouble. If you don’t take the time to be sure the concrete is completely dried before you put the new flooring down, you may be redoing the entire project next year.

Where Does Damage Come From?

The water that is damaging your concrete floors came from one of two places.

In the soil beneath your floors, water tries to escape in the form of vapor, rising up toward the substrate of your floors. If your floors aren’t properly protected, this vapor will enter the concrete’s pores and cracks, damaging it from the inside.
Any inundation or standing water from floods or broken pipes can get absorbed into unsealed concrete.

Know The Entire Situation

When you are cleaning up, you probably don’t know what signs indicate that there is a bigger problem. As water-based adhesives have become more popular, these chemical combinations sometimes don’t allow the concrete to cure properly. So when the tile was applied to the subfloor, the adhesive may have oozed or leaked out along the seams and created an unstable subsurface. Someone who has seen many situations of water damaged concrete would be able to recognize these bubbles or blisters.

Some of the signs that concrete is damaged:

Cracking (could be many from causes)
Spalling, flaking, pitting
Efflorescence or salty deposits
Darkened and discolored areas (could be mold)

So when water damages your property, immediately engage an expert team. The more time the water is in contact with the concrete floors or subfloor, the more damage that occurs. Whether it resulted from a flood, roof leak, sewage backup, or a broken pipe, Serenity Restoration will get your property dry again.

How Professionals Will Proceed

A typical water damage call to Serenity Restoration will prompt an expensive investigation of the affected areas. Before any rebuilding can happen, all the moisture will be removed with a variety of techniques:

Containment chambers are boxes or bubbles of plastic taped to the floor. By trapping the moisture released from the concrete in a contained space, the team can monitor and control the humidity more accurately.
Thermo-hygrometers accurately measure humidity levels.For example, a reading below 72% is enough to install carpet or tile flooring; Wood floors should read less than 70%. So the team will not move on to installation until the concrete is safe.
Low grain refrigerant dehumidifiers are much more precise than a simple basement dehumidifier. LGR systems feature double cooling chambers that lower the temperature of air once inside the machine. More condensation forms on the coils, and more moisture pumped out.

Then the focus will be to completely dry the floors. As professionals, they will use industrial dehumidifiers capable of removing over 120 pints of water a day. More than simple fans, they will expertly place 1) air movers that can move 350+ cubic feet per minute and 2) air scrubbers that can completely cycle the air in the room 3 times in an hour.

They might even use heaters to remove remaining moisture. Throughout the process, the team will measure the humidity with specialized tools to be sure of the results. Because of superior equipment, a quicker dry time will ensure less damage and less inconvenience to you and your family.

After A Disaster, Call Serenity For Water Damage Restoration in Atlanta

You’ve already experienced a big mess from the water damage. Don’t add more problems by attempting to restore the damage on your own. The Serenity team specializes in repairing and restoring Atlanta homes from water damage. They respond to flood emergencies 24/7 to keep you and your property safe.

Serenity Restoration works with all the major insurers or with homeowners that will pay on their own. The most important thing you can do for your home after water damage is to get a qualified team on site today.