Water damage, whether from a disaster such as a flood or simply from prolonged storage in damp or humid conditions, can destroy important documents and books. Restoration professionals use advanced document drying techniques to recover water damaged documents and their data.

Prevent Further Damage

The most important thing you can do after a flood, or when you realize that your documents have sustained water damage, is to prevent further damage. Carefully remove them to a cool, dry environment. If you have a dehumidifier available, set it up to remove excess humidity and moisture from the air.

Water Damaged Documents

If your documents have been damp for 24 hours or longer, they may also have mold growth. A skilled restoration professional will clean and disinfect your documents to remove mold, mildew, and musty odors as part of the document recovery process.

Water Damage Assessment

When you call a document recovery specialist, they will do an initial assessment over the phone to determine the extent of the damage and to decide which document drying techniques are most appropriate in your situation.

In most cases, the restoration team will also visit your home or office to inspect the damage, and to pack the damaged documents for shipping to the restoration company’s document recovery site.

Offsite Restoration

Document recovery is a painstaking process that must be performed under carefully controlled circumstances. Most restoration professionals do this work offsite, in specialized laboratories. This gives them the best chance at saving your valuable data and restoring your documents to their original condition.

Cost of Document Recovery

Document restoration and data recovery can be costly. Depending on the work needed to restore your documents, the cost could be between $50-$150 per cubic foot of paper, plus the costs associated with shipping and storage. However, the costs associated with lost documents, especially for businesses in highly regulated industries, can be significantly higher.

About Vince Sandri

Vince Sandri is a content writer and blogger with more than 12 years of experience. His expertise is in creating content related to disaster restoration, including information about preventing and reacting to natural disasters like flooding, water damage, fire and smoke damage, mold growth, storm damage and more.
Vince has been the main contributor to RestorationMasterFinder.com since 2014. Over that time, he has written numerous service pages and blogs for disaster restoration providers featured on RestorationMasterFinder.com. Vince has done extensive research and covered a wide range of topics relating to disaster restoration to help homeowners, business owners, and property managers better protect their property. He understands the problems that disasters like flooding, fire, smoke, and mold can cause as well as the best ways to respond to these issues to limit the damage.
Vince completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Aurora University and his master’s degree at DePaul University. He has been writing SEO website pages, blogs, and press releases since 2012. Vince is also a musician and can be seen playing in the Chicago, IL area.