The Equipment We Use to Restore your Riverside Property

4/3/2019 (Permalink)

Our Mascot Ellie displays some of the equipment we use to restore Riverside property.

The SERVPRO of West Riverside City franchise takes pride in making sure our customers are helped to the best of our ability.

To do this, our products and equipment need to be the best available so we can make sure the property and situations we encounter during disasters are able to be restored and brought to preloss conditions. With that in mind, we will take you through a behind the scenes look at some of the equipment we use to help get your property and structure to preloss condition. Each machine and piece of equipment has a crucial role in the restoration process. Our technicians are trained to use each piece of equipment to its highest potential. Here are a few of our most commonly seen and used machines, and their purpose.

PORTABLE EXTRACTORS: Extractors are used for cleaning carpets, cleaning upholstery, and removing water from floors after a water loss. An extractor has three major components: a heater, a pump, and a vacuum system. Our technicians use this machine for variable heat controlled cleaning, including to heat the rinse solutions to clean more effectively. The vacuum system and waste recovery tank remove soils and moisture from the surface and collects it in the tank. With this machine, we can expedite the removal of water and moisture from damaged materials and textiles to help restore it to preloss conditions. In doing this, the potential of having to replace materials or belongings is lowered.

THE OZONE GENERATOR: The portable ozone generator eliminates a variety of odors caused by animals, cigarette smoke, mold and mildew, fire, and water damage. This machine generates “ozone”, which consists of unstable oxygen molecules (containing three oxygen atoms). Ozone chemically reacts with odor-causing molecules to oxidize residues and remove the odors. When using this piece of equipment, we follow the absolute and necessary guidelines of use with the purpose of all people and pets should be removed from the environment during ozoning for health and safety reasons. Once the deodorization process is complete, ozone quickly reverts to the normal oxygen molecule, leaving no residues. Once the odor is gone, the results are permanent. One of the features of the ozone generator is that it is made to be compact and portable, yet also be a durable and professional unit.

WEARING AND FIT CHECKING OUR RESPIRATORS: Safety for not only our technicians, but also our customers, is a priority in our company. We enforce that respirators must be worn during all times by our technicians during exposure to hazardous situations. To be safe, we follow one rule of thumb: if the work environment is unpleasant or if it makes you dizzy, our crew is to wear their respirators. No if’s, and’s or but’s. If we are using respirators, we inform customers in the general area of this and advise them with the necessary precautions associated with the work going on for their safety.

DEHUMIDIFIERS: Dehumidifiers remove moisture from the air after it has evaporated.  Our technicians position dehumidifiers strategically in a water-damaged structure so the moist, humid air moves through the unit while dry, warm air is discharged from the unit circulating back into the wet areas. Did you know that dry air acts like a sponge to absorb moisture from wet materials? Since it does, we use the dehumidifiers especially because it provides a continual source of dry air to enhance the restoration process. Refrigerant dehumidifiers remove water vapor through condensation, and based on the specific job, we will use a small commercial refrigerant dehumidifier because it removes approximately 8 gallons of water per day from the atmosphere, while an extra-large commercial refrigerant could remove as much as 20 gallons per day.

AIR MOVERS: Air movers are used in water damage restoration to enhance evaporation at the surface level and reduce drying time. These machines introduce airflow at the surface level and replace the highly saturated air with drier air to enhance evaporation. Our crew has gone through specific training on the science of drying to know how many air movers they will need and how to position them to create airflow across all wet surfaces. In some cases, when the lower portion of multiple walls are wet, involving wet drywall behind baseboards, enough air movers are positioned to create a vortex of circular airflow around the walls. Our technicians operate the air movers in several different positions, offering flexibility in how to direct the airflow with the best possible outcome. 

There are many other machines and equipment accessories we use, but for today’s behind the scenes look we are proud to show you some our most commonly used pieces of equipment. These machines help us get your personal disaster back to preloss condition and to make it “Like it never even happened!” because SERVPRO of West Riverside City is always here to help!