Water Damage
Electronic Equipment
Electronic equipment exposed to water and moisture is not necessarily permanently damaged. Trained technicians can remove water, which has been sprayed, splashed or dripped onto electronic equipment. Even equipment that has been totally submerged can be restored. However, in every case of water damage, immediate counter-measures are imperative. Units energised on at the time of inundation are most likely to be damaged.
Documents
When paper-based documents become water damaged, you can always put a wet book out in the sun and let Mother Nature run its course! Or you can place the same book in a room, dehumidify the area, and watch the water levels reduce daily. Both methods ignore the fact that damage occurs in the liquid phase of water. Once paper fibres become wet, they are pliable and the paper fibres fuse together. Separation of papers will be difficult, if not impossible, without information loss. It is only in the liquid phase that damage occurs to media.
The key is using the best technology. Steamatic uses the latest fifth generation vacuum freeze-drying process, enabling frozen paper media to dry without the water entering the liquid phase again. Solid-state water (ice) within the articles is subjected to a heat source and the solid water attempts to thaw, and the moisture becomes vapour. Once in this gaseous state we are able to extract it from the chamber. The result: the articles release all their water content but the articles never get wet during the process.
There is also the additional concern using other methods: possible mould formation, paper based products will expand making future storage of this information costly and awkward, unstable dyes continue to run and/or fade are some of the considerations when applying the correct recovery technology.
Books, medical records, photographs and other vital documents are not usually a total loss following fire or water damage. Steamatic provides true freeze-drying, deodorisation and reproduction services to maximise the preservation of original documents, and where documents are beyond preservation, retention of information.
