{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"","title":"Flood Restoration House Clean-up: Structure, Utilities and Mold","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/5ec63e77c5681e7d353f580b/dad8b701f239c2176a5edc80fef0fccf.jpg?height=200","description":"This is Kenneth Hellevang of an agricultural engineer with the NDSU Extension Service and we're looking now at this the second of the five segments on flooded house cleanup. In this one, we're gonna focus on the structure utilities and look at a Minneapolis mold removal and cleanup in the home typically, the first thing that the city or governmental unit will do is to bring a team in and do an evaluation of the home. They'll look for the structural hazards and they'll look to make sure that the electricity is shut off, that the gas is there aren't any environmental dangers. Then they will post on the home some kind of a placard or sheet that indicates that that home has been inspected. So, this was what you will see as you come back to your flooded home as you come through to that.
We look at a flooded damaged home in Minneapolis and found how important it is to do your own evaluation and the first thing that you're going to do is to look at the structure and really look for any signs of movement. Look for alignment any bowing that's occurring cracks that have shown up in the foundation or concrete or walls any good shape. If you see something then you really need to bring in a contractor or somebody else a building inspector that can help you determine what's the structural integrity of that home. The other thing that you'll want to look for is floors and ceiling. If floors that have been flooded for an extended period of time may have delaminated, lost their structural strength and it's important that you use some type of probe or board. To really check that surface for strength as you're coming into the home, also be looking up at the ceiling. If the whole house was flooded portions of the ceiling it may have fallen parts of it and it may still be hanging up there and might fall on you.
Here are a couple of pictures that I took that the one on the left is obviously a home that has been moved off of its foundation and this home would be very difficult to reclaim the picture. On the right just shows you, that there will be a lot of kind of surprising things. As you come into your flood and disaster damage home this is a picture showing a mobile, one of these travel trailers motor homes where it floated and during the flood and was actually pushed into the end of this house and so you'll be wanting to lookup high down low everywhere. As you're coming back checking for what the condition of that home and yard is, as you're making your reentry and as I indicated the utility should have shut the electricity off but it's very important for you to verify, that electricity has been shut off before you start work. If we're in a home, where part of it was flooded and part of it wasn't making sure that that the electricity is off in the areas where you will be working and then I strongly encourage you to use a ground fault circuit interrupter on any equipment. Electrical equipment that you're going to be using if you don't have one available. I encourage you really to purchase one shown here in this Center extension cord, it has the ground fault circuit interrupter right into that device and so it's important to use a circuit interrupter because that is what's going to provide you your personal safety. It measures the electricity going out to the piece of equipment coming back from the piece of equipment and if there's a difference, it'll shut that circuit off, immediately and so if you're using shop vacs or anything else in a damp environment, critical that you use a GFI.
In that circuit, also make sure that the gas has been shut off to any of the heating appliances that might be in the home. As we're coming into a flooded home, frequently the power will be shut off so we'll need to provide some kind o emergency power standby or emergency generator to provide the electric power that we need for lighting and for tools and equipment, that we're going to be using. One of the major hazards with a standby generator is that it's producing carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and other combustion pollutants and we don't want that to be settling into the home where we're working. So make sure that that generator is off to the side. Some distance from the house, so that it has good circulation and ventilation around it. Things that you'll need to have as you're going in lighting will need to be provided and you're going to be doing a lot of cleaning and pairing things apart, so you'll need tools and equipment to do that and there will be a lot of materials to be called out of the structure, so we'll need some type of containers for that garbage. There may not be bathroom facilities, so we need to think about that and then always make sure that we have a first aid kit, mold, and grows very quickly. We post about this flood on Twitter back then and continue to post about all things water damage in Minneapolis at our disaster restoration page.
If we have a warm damp environment, sometimes it's very obvious and it is shown on the left side but frequently it'll be within wall cavities. As shown in the middle, where we really don't see it until we open up that wall cavity but if the materials have been wet for an extended period of time, we can't expect that it would be a moldy environment and on the right side, air shows mold growing. On the backside of wallpaper, a mole loves glue and so any cellulose materials and particularly, the glue that's used in home construction likely have mold growth on it many times and there's a tendency to know well does the mold that I have in my home causing me problems. Once I've done some of the cleanups and you can go out and buy a test kit similar to what's showing on the left side, but that's not going to give us any kind of valid information because there's always mold spores in the air, so if we set that that test kit out that petri dish it'll always come back. Looking like the slide on the right the picture, on the right and that does not mean we have a mold problem it just means that there are mold spores in the air and there's always going to be mold spores floating around unless we're in a sterile Hospital or very sanitized environment and certainly in the summertime, we're going to have a lot of molds around and so testing for mold is strongly discouraged. It's expensive, if we do it correctly and generally, we just need to be cleaning and it's important to remember that people react to mold, whether it's living or dead.
Applying a biocide to it is not adequate killing. It is not adequate sealing it into a wall and it is not adequate needs to be physically removed. As we're doing mold cleanup and mold remediation, that's what we need to really keep in mind with porous materials ceiling tile carpeting. Upholstered furniture wallboard mold, will actually grow into the material and there's no way to thoroughly remove the old, so we need to actually remove the porous materials. Remove these cut the carpet and remove the wallboard and move that to the outdoors. If we're looking at non-porous surfaces, hard metal glass, and those kinds of things then we can just wash it with a detergent solution and sanitize it with a BIOS. If we want, but again thorough drying is important with semi-porous materials. Basically, the structural lumber the floor joists studs in the wall seal plates, etc. There again, we need to remove the mold and making sure that we're adequately drying those materials and we should not be thinking of using bleach. We shouldn't be thinking of using other biocides just to physically remove the mold from the structure. Sometimes, people think that if they seal the mold into a wall cavity but it's not a problem anymore, but air will move from the outside through the wall cavity and into the inside of a home.
If you put your hand over an electrical outlet in the wintertime when the wind is blowing generally, you can feel a cool breeze and that air will be coming through that wall, picking up some of the molds fragments. Some of the mold spores that might still be in there and bringing that into the living space so it's critical that we thoroughly clean the walls and any other enclosed cavities as part of our cleanup process. If we have a home where part of that house has not been contaminated and has not been flooded, what we want to do is to isolate that from the other part of the house and that has been flooded and damaged, so as we do the cleanup we're not contaminating the clean part of the house. Think about the heating system, the ventilation system, and the air conditioning system and try to seal that generally what has used some type of plastic or poly sheeting and then, we want to create a negative pressure in the dirty area put a fan blowing. The air to the outdoors creating a vacuum in the dirty area, so that if there's any air leakage it's coming from the clean part of the structure. Into the dirty part, rather than the dirt going into the clean part, is very important that we contain the area that we're working and that brings us to the close of our second section and now we'll be looking at the actual clean-up process and drying the structure in the next two phases.","author_name":"Disaster Restoration Masters"}