Even a small amount of water can cause considerable damage to your home. When water finds its way into your property through the roof, basement, leaky pipe, or an old water heater, the result is often extensive water damage and mold growth.

According to the Insurance Information Institute (III), about 1 in 50 insured homes has a property damage claim caused by water damage or freezing each year. The average American uses between 80–100 gallons of water a day, so it’s no wonder that some of it goes astray and leads to water damage.

Water damage sounds scary and complicated, a long process to get your home back and looking good as it was before. But it’s not just a matter of cleaning up the water, re-painting and replacing some carpet. Your first priority should be to make sure that your home is safe. Water damage creates the perfect environment for mold and poor indoor air quality, causing hay fever-type symptoms, such as sneezing, runny nose, red eyes, and skin rashes. If your post-flood restoration isn’t done properly the contamination from bacteria or mold caused by water damage can affect your family’s health, not to mention your home’s structure. But, as with every bad situation in life, it can be an opportunity. Think about it, maybe is the right time to do some home remodeling that you’ve been wanting to do and change your home for the better

Here are the essential steps, for remodeling after water damage.

Remove the flood water

The first step in your water damage restoration works is to remove stagnant water. The longer the water sits, the more expensive the damage will be. The rule is that the standing water must be removed within 48 hours to decrease the chances of unhealthy organisms. If something in your home can’t get dry within 48 hours, it needs to go. This also includes carpets and furniture.

It’s essential to get an idea of the extent of water damage, so you can take the first effective steps against mold growth. For this, you need detection equipment to collect and appropriately map the moisture values for your property. Licensed technicians who perform these inspections use much more advanced infrared and digital imaging to determine the damage extent without further damaging your floors and walls.

Inspect and remove mold

After the moisture is mapped, the house needs to be treated against mold and mildew. Residual stagnant water in any property, residential or business, creates an ideal habitat for fungal forms to thrive, so countermeasures are needed as soon as possible.

Water clean-up professionals recommend using special fungicide detergents to sterilize the area and make the surroundings unfavorable for mold growth. Deodorization and ventilation measures during this step can also help remove airborne contaminants, mold spores, and unpleasant odors.

Dry the areas

The next step makes sure the property is completely dry, with humidity brought back to its normal state after the flood. There are various drying techniques, and each is used depending on the situation’s severity. Air movers are used to drying the premises by controlling humidity and improving air circulation.

Section by section, air movers remove liquids from porous materials like carpets and wood. Dehumidifiers remove moisture from the air and help remove the remaining water from your home. while desiccant humidifiers use raw materials that naturally absorb moisture from the environment, refrigerant dehumidifiers cool the air to reduce its ability to retain water.

Renovate critical areas

Even under normal conditions, the kitchen and bathroom are major sources of moisture and airborne particles. In a case of flood, these “wet” areas are expected to be severely damaged, due to many plumbing fixtures and drain that these rooms can’t do without. This can be an excellent opportunity to renovate these spaces from top to bottom during water damage restoration.

Fortify the interior walls

After your clean, dry, and deodorize the framing, you need to get water-resistant replacements. Materials like fiberglass wall insulation are popular, but highly inadequate in this case, as it soaks up water like a sponge. Instead, consider extruded polystyrene foam boards for insulation. Replace the drywall with a cement board, since it doesn’t absorb water at all. This way you don’t need to worry about future mold infestations. You can also use PVC-based boards for the baseboard while avoiding wood trim completely. This ensures that, even if your carpet gets wet, your walls will stay dry. Finish off the surfaces with waterproof paint.