Wringing Out Extra Costs From Water Damage Claims
By Mickey Lee

The tornadoes came and left, leaving behind hundreds of homes, schools and businesses damaged in a Southern state. Among the damaged buildings was a partially-occupied professional center that suffered damage to its roof and a couple of windows, allowing considerable water to enter and flood nearly half of the two-story structure.

Within 24 hours of the loss, the building was inspected and a plan for drying it out was presented to the owners. The insurance adjuster gave his approval for work to begin. However, the owners began thinking this may be an opportunity to do some upgrading of the facility that would make it more marketable. So, after an initial extraction of the water, temporary boarding up of the windows and relocation of the existing tenants into the unaffected areas, the damaged portion of the building was cordoned off while plans were formed.

Two months later, a contractor was called in to begin work on the planned upgrades. Once work began, though, it was evident that considerably more restoration work would have to be done than first anticipated. Most of the drywall and insulation would have to be replaced due to mold growth. All of the ceiling tiles were sagging from being in the high-humidity environment. Much of the cabinetry and millwork would have to be replaced due to swelling and delamination. Finally, the entire building's HVAC system would have to be cleaned due to microbial contamination.

All of this additional damage could probably have been prevented with well-applied restorative drying techniques.

So the question is: What can be done to reduce the impact of a water damage event on your policyholder's business? There are three important principles to keep in mind: 

Timely action
It is essential to remember that damage resulting from water is progressive. The longer the water flows or wet conditions exist, the more is absorbed and the greater is the recovery problem. Merely stopping the source of the incoming water does not stop further water damage, though it is an obvious and critical first step.

Water damage usually occurs in the following five stages:

Stage 1: The free-flow of water by gravity. Gravity will level out the available water and cause it to find cracks in the floor, plumbing penetrations and many other openings. This affects the floors below as well as other adjacent spaces. Quick action at earlier stages of water damage will reduce the costs and resulting cleanup. On the other hand, delaying action increases both exponentially.

     Stage 2: The wicking of moisture into materials that are in direct contact with water. Damage continues to increase as long as free-water touches gypsum board, wood floors, furniture and documents due to the tendency of materials to draw in moisture through capillary action. This damage is mitigated by quick and thorough water-extraction, as it will remove the free-water and stop the wicking. Effective action at this stage will drastically reduce the time and effort to dry out the wet building materials.

     Stage 3: High humidity damage. This occurs when the moisture on and in the wet materials begins to evaporate, saturating the surrounding air. Previously unaffected materials now take on moisture. Early signs of high humidity damage include condensation forming on walls, ceiling tiles sagging from high moisture content and paper stock taking on moisture to the point it cannot be used for copying.

     This damage is mitigated by controlling the relative humidity inside the building through the use of high-capacity dehumidifiers. Quick action at this stage will keep the moisture content of the building material and contents below the threshold at which they will support microbial growth.

     Stage 4: Active microbial growth. This begins when materials have taken on sufficient moisture to be able to support mold and mildew. The threshold for most cellulose-based material (i.e., wood, documents and the paper covering on gypsum board) is when their moisture content exceeds 20 to 25 percent of their weight.

     Reducing this damage is accomplished by controlling three key conditions of the building's air: relative humidity, temperature and air circulation. Controlling these will create an environment that will rapidly dry the materials back to their pre-loss moisture content. Effective action at this point will generally confine the damage to the area that was directly affected by the water damage event.

     Stage 5: The spread of microbials to other, originally unaffected areas of the building. The spread of microbials (i.e., mold, mildew, odors and other pathogens) may eventually occur due to unchecked microbial growth in the affected area, the movement of people throughout the building, air circulation systems and/or elevator movement from floor-to-floor. If this stage of water damage occurs, a comprehensive plan must be put together involving various indoor air quality professionals and contractors.

     Quick and effective action at the earliest possible stage will reduce interruption to the business, reduce overall restoration costs and increase the likelihood that irreplaceable items will still be usable. This type of needed action can be facilitated by: (1) qualifying a drying contractor prior to any loss, (2) communicating your agendas and plans with the contractor and (3) placing them into a written disaster recovery plan (DRP).

Triage
Triage is the classifying of needs in order to ensure the best use of resources, equipment and personnel. When it comes to the continuity of the business, the top priorities are personnel and business data. Those are obvious and are generally covered well in a DRP. What is often not covered, though, are recovery plans for the facility - the physical plant that houses data and personnel.

In advance of a disaster, your policyholders should prioritize the recovery of areas within your facility. Records should be reviewed for their potential importance after a disaster noting their location and priority in the DRP. One goal should be to ensure that emergency personnel and contractors know the company's recovery priorities, so they are not pulled from critical needs to work on "squeaky wheels" that, in actuality, are of lower priority.

It is very important to involve a drying contractor after a water damage event. The contractor can help assess which items are worth restoration and which are better replaced. Damaged items that have lower costs associated with replacement and are easily obtained should be replaced rather than dried-out and restored. On the other hand, items that are difficult to replace or have a very high replacement cost validate the restoration effort.

Targeted results
How dry is dry enough? Your drying contractor will allow the building to "tell" him or her when it is dry enough and when to stop the drying process. Beware the drying company that tells you it can dry the building in five days, but cannot define how it will know when the building is dry. A knowledgeable contractor should also demonstrate a familiarity with moisture-measuring instruments, which he will use to test the affected materials for moisture content.

Your contractor should monitor the building in three different ways: 

• By determining the pre-loss moisture contents of the gypsum board, wood floors and other building materials

• By frequently monitoring the moisture in the building materials to track their drying progress; and

• By monitoring daily the conditions of the air inside the water-damaged areas, as well as the status of the building's HVAC system.

Following are three general principles that should be used by drying professionals to determine when the drying of a building is complete. These principles are a part of a drying standard that professional drying contractors should offer customers to define the end result of their services.

Drying is generally considered sufficient when:

• The interior ambient conditions are at, or better than, normal room conditions (i.e., the building's HVAC will be able to maintain the proper ambient conditions.);

• The moisture on and in the building materials themselves will not support active microbial growth; and

• The building materials and contents will return to equilibrium with normal room conditions, by themselves, without further damage to them

Calculating your AC/H
The first step in determining how much equipment is needed is to calculate the volume of the space that must be conditioned. It is always advantageous to restrict the drying effort only to the area affected. Doing so will limit equipment needed, thus reducing the cost of the job. However, with today's open office designs and existing HVAC systems, limiting the job to ideal circumstances may not always be possible.

A competent drying service will then determine how many times the air inside the building must be changed each hour for drying to proceed efficiently. This objective is called the air-change per hour rate or AC/H. Arriving at a targeted AC/H requires consideration of several factors:

1.      The density of room build-out - It will be substantially more difficult to circulate dehumidified air throughout a space with many closed office areas than in one of the same size that is designed in an open style. To compensate for reduced circulation, and avoid constructing complicated delivery systems, a higher AC/H rate can be targeted.

2.      The materials affected - Some materials are more difficult to dry than others. If the carpet is the only material affected, you can get by with fewer AC/H than if there are extensive drywall, insulation and hardwood floors involved. The more difficult the materials are to dry, the more aggressive the approach must be.

3.      The degree of wicking of water - As long as water is touching drywall, it continues to wick through capillary action up the wall. It is not uncommon for water to wick two to three feet above the actual water level. Accordingly, a wall that is wet to a level of 36 inches will require a more aggressive approach than one wet to a height of six inches.

4.      The ambient condition in the building - The final major factor considered in setting the targeted AC/H is the existing outside weather conditions and the operability of the building's HVAC system. In some cases, the need for dehumidified air can be reduced if the outside air is substantially drier than the inside air. If so, the HVAC system can be used to deliver the drier outside air, while it helps to initially purge the building of built-up moisture. However, when outside air conditions are not favorable or if mold or mildew problems are suspected, this technique may make matters worse and contribute to a spread of mold spores.

Once drying professionals factor in these variables, they can develop the targeted AC/H. Typically, targets range from 1 to 4 AC/H. In recommending a system to achieve this AC/H, a contractor also considers whether the building has electrical power and how entrances and elevators ease or limit the use of certain equipment. With all logistical concerns reviewed, the contractor can make a decision on the specific mix of dehumidifiers and air-moving equipment to be used.

Not surprisingly, many of the same factors discussed above also affect the time needed to return building materials to their pre-loss moisture content. In addition, other factors can drying time. A common consideration is the finish on the affected walls. For example, gypsum board with vinyl wall-covering dries two to three times slower than gypsum board that is covered with a latex paint.

Generally, drying an average commercial office building will take five to seven days, while many heavy-commercial buildings will take seven to 10 days. The restoration of costly finishing materials, such as hardwoods, and the thorough drying of multiple layered walls, often require additional time.

By developing a few critical plans before a disaster occurs and then by working closely with a drying contractor, you and your policyholder can reduce the interruption to the insured business, limit costs to only what is necessary and reduce the potential for more serious problems later.

Mickey Lee is national technical services manager for Munters Moisture Control Services, based in Glendale Heights, Ill.