My name is Phill McGurk. I have been in and around the “Flood Restoration” industry since 1997. I have been involved with many situations involving flooded houses/buildings due to burst pipes, sewage back ups, excessive down pours resulting in mudslides, broken roofs, rising water into houses/business. Many of these problems are caused by storm water drains, raised creek levels, overflowing bath tubs and other reasons.
All these situations result in a different clean up to occur. People ask me a lot, “How long before my house is dry?”
The simple answer is that an inspection with a device called a “Moisture Reading Instrument” is required and then an evaluation can be made. For the most instances, you can stay in your house whilst the drying is being performed normally lasting anywhere from 1 to 4 days. On the odd occasion due to different materials used in the making of the property this could extend to a week or more. In the case of the recent flooding which occurred in January, you have to start thinking “If I was to pour a slab for my house today and it was to be given nothing but the best sunlight without any rainy days, how long would it be before I can start building?”
Now ask yourself this question, that same slab under a roof inside the cladding of all the walls in the house and given that we have not had perfect weather, how long now is it going to take? This is not to say that some slabs will not be dry, this is just saying how do you know?
Unfortunately, just because it has been 8 weeks since the storm hit doesn’t mean that the house is now dry. A moisture level less than 75% relative humidity within the slab is considered to be at a safe moisture level specification. Timber (depending on the type) should be less than 16%.
New Life Restorations have Moisture Testing service which can give you assessments on whether your house is dry. The basic service starts at $363. If structural drying and remediation is required we can also provide a quote for this service.
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