Water-Soaked Art Refresher Needed

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Shayla

Shayla

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One of my friends and her husband have come home to a badly flooded basement.
They stayed last night in a hotel, and are there for the duration whilst their soggy
house is rendered habitable, which will take at least weeks. I wrote to her that she
might try freezing any wet books, so mildew won't form between now and when
they have a chance to dry them out. Seem to recall having read that here.

Any other advice?
 
Wet books have to be freeze-dried, not frozen. Whole different procedure - must be done professionally. Probably very costly, only used on valuable items.

Hope their insurance affords the application of many giant fans and dehumidifiers.

How is it that the rest of the house is inhabitable? Or do they live in a basement apartment?
 
Thanks for the clarification, Mar! :thumbsup:

As per your question, having had a great aunt who wound up with four feet of water
in her basement during a local flood and kept right on living upstairs, I'm inclined to
think that it's possible to do it if they really wanted. On the other hand, she did say
that the water damage is severe enough they'll need upstairs work done, too, so
maybe it's just easier to stay out and let the repairmen have their day.
 
If you do a search for “disaster preparedness” you should find some good information about how to start the recovery process…

Freezing of books (read paper) is really for a professional you need to know what you are doing and use the right type of freezer, I mentioned this on another thread that you started about some book belong to an aunt or someone related to you….. I think it was that got wet or was stored incorrectly.

Hmmmmm freeze drying could be an option !!!! however I have not seen much reference to it been used in disaster recovery publications or method, again you would need to know what you are doing…

I have read quite extensively on the subject of disaster preparedness as I’m building a range of products in my sales range suitable for this sort of work… http://www.ote.ie/disaster-preparedness

Some useful links:

http://www.bishopmuseum.org/research/pdfs/cnsv-disaster.pdf

http://icom.museum/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/Guidelines/guidelinesdisasters_eng.pdf
 
shayla said:
Thanks for the clarification, Mar! :thumbsup:

As per your question, having had a great aunt who wound up with four feet of water
in her basement during a local flood and kept right on living upstairs, I'm inclined to
think that it's possible to do it if they really wanted. On the other hand, she did say
that the water damage is severe enough they'll need upstairs work done, too, so
maybe it's just easier to stay out and let the repairmen have their day.
Click to expand...

Hopefully they have good insurance. We did, called them immediately, had someone out with large fans, vacuums, etc., within 4 hours. (we had $1,000 deductible), but we had to pay $1,000 for the immediate crew, then the insurance took care of everything else.

Janet went down stairs in her flip flops, and noticed her feet were wet. (I was out shopping). She immediately turned off the water and called me. Our basement library was flooded with about 4" of water, but luckily no damage; my work area had just a little moisture, so it worked out well.

The fans were on for about 4 days. They did have to cut come ceiling work, but I was impressed with the way the insurance company handled it.
 
Freezing buy time. Keep books, papers etc. as compressed as possible when transferring to crates/boxes to go to the large scale freezer. Freeze drying is the method used to remove the water/ice to minimize damage. ( As opposed to air drying, which is another method useful for small disasters but much more labor intensive because pages have to be separated and or fanned, and moisture wicked with interleaving materials that need to be replaced as they become damp.

Some disaster resources:

Section 6, Risk Management, MRM5 Museum Registration Methods 5th Edition, American Museums Association
Identifying Features of Effecitve Emergency Response Plans, Journal of the American Institute For Conservation , Spring/Summer 2011-Vol. 50, No.1, Ferraro and Henderson pp 35-48
Western Association for Art Conservation Newsletter, Sept. 2005, Vol 27, No 3, devoted to Disaster Salvage and Response:
“Mold: A Conservator’s Very Basic Mold Primer”, Kaplan
“Excerpts From: Disaster Preparedness Workbook for U.S. Navy Libraries and Archives”, Fox and Patkus
“Salvage Operations for Water Damaged Archival Collections”, Walsh
“Salvage at a Glance”, Walsh
“Exerpts from: Emergency Salvage Procedures for Wet Items”, Minnesota Historical Society
“Getting Ready to Respond, When Theory and Live Meet” Koerner
Available on line for a limited time; printed version can be ordered anytime: http://cool.conservation-us.org/waac/ttl/
MoMA’s “Immediate Response for Collections” http://www.moma.org/docs/explore/conservation/emergency_guidelines_for_art_disasters.pdf
 
Thank you! :thumbsup:
 
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