The Fundamentals of Water Damage

Energy will remain balanced and will seek to find balance.

If you add higher energy in one area of your structure, that energy will try to balance itself out by finding an area of low energy. 
​
You can simplify this law down to the following statements:

In This Blog

3. Introduction
5. The Fundamentals
6. Don’t be a Marvin Mold Grower!
8. A Personal Story
​9. The Laws of Thermodynamics
11. Applying Thermodynamics to your jobs
14. LGR Dehumidifier

So you want a professional property restorer?

Of course you do! That’s why you’re reading this Blog!
 
On the surface, it might look like an easy job of putting in equipment and walking away. Do that... if you want to help mold build up.
Water restoration is a complex trade! It requires a fundamental understanding of: building science, structural building practices, and the science that surrounds water damage restoration. The deeper your knowledge of building sciences and building compositions, and the greater your knowledge is of how building materials respond to moisture, the more likely you’ll be able to increase your profitability and deliver a successfully dried project.
 
Become a sponge: learn everything you can about the science and let the knowledge soak in.
After all, drying a building is about atmospheric sciences inside and outside the structure. It’s about the molecules and microorganisms that live within your job and it is the application of science that allows you to pull the moisture out.
 
Here is the good news, this blog is going to simplify the difficult science to help a novice/intermediate restorer make better decisions in the field. This blog won’t replace the courses and hands on knowledge that you will get from the classroom and field, but it will help supplement your learning.
 
At GTA Restoration, we know it’s hard to master every project—and that’s ok.
We’re going to help you understand the concepts and help you manage all the information that comes your way. By the end of this blog, you will have the skills needed to be able to start drying a building.
We also have a new Moisture tool that can help you simplify your water damage property.
The time you spend with a qualified trainer who has field knowledge and can allow you to learn by relating to their experience is key. If you are using GTA Restoration, you’ll have the playbook that helps you unleash the full potential of saving your property.

However, note that nothing replaces the technical training of the IICRC and the advance learning of the Restoration Industry Association.
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Want to be a ‘Power Restorer’? Want to own your town and be known as a ‘Drying God’? Do you have dreams of being called on stage for your Super Hero-Like Skills? Keep reading and join the elite team of GTA Restoration.

​The Fundamentals

Sometimes, we forget the fundamentals 
Our goal as a restoration professional is to return the building materials to a dry standard or the same moisture level as the other unaffected materials in the building, or to remove, clean, and disinfect the structural materials. The dry standard is the target moisture content for the particular material in its normal (unaffected) state within that structure/specific micro-climate. Materials become ‘dry’ once they reach the dry standard.
 
This level depends on the type of material, the location of the material in the building, and even where you live and the time of the season.
The various tools you use on the project may also provide you with relatively high or low readings depending on the circumstances. For example, a piece of oak wood in a dry climate might have a dry standard (drying goal) of 6% moisture level. Whereas the same piece of wood on the East Coast might have a dry standard of 10%.
These levels can fluctuate structure to structure and change throughout the year depending on the prevailing weather. This is why it is highly
 
Moisture Level (ML):
the amount of moisture contained in the material on a relative scale. Moisture level is used when the tool is not calibrated for the specific material. (IICRC S500 V4, 2015, 328)
 
Moisture Content (MC):
the amount of water contained in a material, expressed as a percentage of the weight of the oven dry material. If a restorer is measuring materials with an instrument that is calibrated for that material, then it is recommended that the term Moisture Content be used (IICRC S500 V4, 2015, 328).

​recommended that a restorer does not use a regional dry standard for drying materials, but uses a specific dry standard for that structure when possible.

Don’t be a Marvin Mold Grower!

Scared about making mistakes and screwing up someone’s building by causing a moldy mess? You should be!

It doesn’t take much to lose track of moisture, especially when you are not paying attention to where it might be going within a building. If you think all the moisture is heading to the dehumidifier then you probably have been running fast and loose with your drying strategy. There is a really good chance you are leaving moisture where you do not want it. You should understand the drying forces and how they apply to the structure. Cocky restorers who think they can dry a structure in three days by throwing in equipment and walking away, scare me and they should scare you too. Yet, they are the ones who should be scared as they tend to use their lawyer and liability insurance more often

As a restorer, we are expected to understand where and how moisture will travel within a structure.

​There is a double hit to your property when you make a mistake and cause a mold issu. First, your reputation for handling water losses drops and word spreads very quickly in this industry. The second is that you make a mistake and enter the mold remediation process, because like it or not, it is another restorer that has to clean up your mess.

​Let’s review each factor that applies to a drying project and connect them together so you have a full working knowledge. If you understand these principles at the end of this chapter, you will start building a solid foundation.
 
We are going to start off with what might seem like heavy science but we can simplify it for you.

​A Personal Story...

When I first became a restorer, it took me two years to fully comprehend temperature, relative humidity, and humidity ratio (formally referred to as specific humidity). I couldn’t understand how they are interrelated and what they meant. Consequently, I was doing things that were counterproductive to my drying success.

​Having gained the knowledge of how to apply vapor pressure differentials to the buildings I was working on, I became aware of where I might encounter the dew point and other challenges to drying a building.

That knowledge has helped me avoid some big mistakes and helped me avoid getting into liability troubles.

​I can’t stress enough that you will need to get your advanced water training sooner than later and take it again in a year so you understand and retain the concepts.

Struggling with water concepts?
No problem—we got you covered.
​Check out GTA Restoration’s Moisture tool to see how we simplify moisture jobs.

The Laws of Thermodynamics

Understanding the forces that you apply to a building will increase your chances of success. Thermodynamics are the laws that manage energy. For this blog, we’ll simplify the laws. You can apply them to your jobs as these concepts will help you understand drying.

In an isolated system, you cannot create or remove energy. Energy can only be transferred.

​THE LAW OF CONSERVATION
​
To a restorer this means that heat energy in the air can be transferred to the wet and affected materials. Transferring heat into the materials lowers the room air temperature and increases the materials’ temperature. As a material’s temperature increases, the energy is transferred into the moisture. The moisture molecules then get excited as they start to leave the material. The heat energy leaves the materials and this results in evaporative cooling. The energy is transferred to the moisture in the air.

​LAW OF EQUILIBRIUM

Energy will remain balanced and will seek to find balance.

If you add higher energy in one area of your structure, that energy will try to balance itself out by finding an area of low energy.

You can simplify this law down to the following statements:

Think of air as having energy. An easy way to do this is to look at the weather. A fierce thunderstorm will often follow a hot, humid day. Hot, wet air has a lot of energy in it. You rarely see a thunderstorm in the winter in Canada and the northern United States because colder air has less moisture and energy to create those spectacular storms.

Thinking of air through the lens of energy can help you to understand how the different parts of the drying job interact with each other.

When a restorer adds heat to the room and the air movers circulate that heat over the wet materials, the energy is transferred to the materials. Hot moves to cold and the energy transfers into the material to heat them up.

​When using a Thermohygrometer (the tool we use for measuring the atmospheres of a drying chamber), you will be measuring the relative humidity (the percentage of humidity) or humidity ratio (actual amount of moisture in grains per pound—GPP) of the air, and the associated temperature. From there, the tool can calculate vapour pressure, which is a measurement of the energy being applied by the air. Not all devices will provide this measurement.

Applying Thermodynamics to your jobs

As we take the Laws of Thermodynamics and apply them in the real world, it gets complicated as you have many different temperatures and heat energy loads in and around the building. It takes a lot of energy to evaporate moisture into the air. (Law #1 says we cannot destroy energy, we can only transfer it) so as we release the moisture from the materials into the air, the air is now holding onto that energy. For air to move energy, it needs to hold the energy. According to the second Law of Thermodynamics, the Law of Equilibrium, energy in the air wants to balance with an area of lower energy in the surrounding environment.

What restorers sometimes forget or fail to recognize, is that there are many other areas in a structure that have lower energy.

For example (see above), if you had three rooms in your atmosphere1: a rec-room, hallway, and office, the atmospheres would be working to find balance. A drier room in the chamber would pull moisture from the other rooms. The rooms in the entire chamber would have similar psychrometric readings. Although, there may be slight differences you would only need to take one reading inside your drying chamber instead of taking readings in each room. Now that we know that hot, humid, high energy air is looking for areas that are drier and have less energy, we can investigate the property to look for areas of lower energy and address them as areas of concern. Many restorers make the assumption that moisture will always head toward the dehumidifier. Most LGR dehumidifiers (see page 14). use a mechanically driven fan to bring the higher energy, warm, moist air through an intake and force the air to pass over a colder surface. This process moves the air over cold coils, forcing it

This results in a lower vapor pressure of the air leaving the machine.

to reach the dew point and release the energy in the form of moisture condensing on the coils. As a result, moisture is removed from the air by condensation.

The air then passes over the by-pass and picks up the additional heat energy leaving the machine, with an increased heat and less moisture. You would be familiar with this process if you measure the exhaust on the dehumidifier and you are looking for the grain depression.

What restorers sometimes forget or fail to recognize, is that there are many other areas in a structure that have lower energy. These areas are likely cooler, drier environments such as the unaffected areas of the structure or a colder surface like concrete and metal. Alternatively, the outside might be drier and apply forces to the project that pull the moisture into the walls toward the exterior. The moisture will also be attracted to the cooler surfaces, like exterior walls, windows, ventilation systems and doorways. It is never safe to assume that the moisture will go where you think it will go.

High energy seeks to balance itself with low energy, and hot, moist air will go to hot, dry air or it will seek out colder surfaces. This is where you need to be aware that the moisture is not going to just your dehumidifier. It’s time for you to build and plan your ‘A game’. You need to know where moisture will travel and have a plan for controlling it.

SOURCES
ANSI/IICRC S500-2015 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Water Damage Restoration. 4th ed., Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification, 2015.

​LGR
Dehumidifier

​A. Evaporator
B. Condenser
C. Compressor
D. Water Tank
E. Fan

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Can’t get enough on moisture jobs? Neither can we!

That’s why we’re releasing
Chapter Two: The Importance of Vapor Pressure, Dew Point, and Temperature in the next few weeks.

You’ll learn:

1. Why vapor pressure and vapor pressure differential are important to a drying job
2. The importance of watching your temperature and dew point
3. ​And the importance of watching the grain depression

Request a free demo to try out our new Moisture tool.