Flooding from a water main break, frozen pipes or melting ice can severely damage important records and interrupt business operations.
Depending on the extent of the damage, paper can be restored, further damage can be prevented and would-be losses can be turned back into assets. Business Records Management offers a freeze drying method to restore water-damaged documents.
Freeze Drying
Freeze drying removes frozen water before it can return to its liquid state. According to conservatists and archivists, freeze drying is the safest procedure, because the liquid state of water is the most damaging. When documents are damaged by water, it is important to freeze them right away to avert mold growth.
BRM uses a freeze drying chamber to bypass the liquid state. In the freeze drying process, the ice in documents never melts. It sublimates, changing directly from a solid to a gas. The resulting water vapor is then removed by vacuum pressure, leaving the documents dry once more.
Freeze drying prevents additional damage such as ink running and photos sticking to adjacent pages, which can occur with other document drying procedures. Some methods freeze documents and then dry them with heat and a vacuum. This is not freeze drying because the ice melts into water before it turns to a vapor.
Minimize Damage
Damage can be minimized by taking three factors into account: the type of damage, the priority with which it needs to be saved and how quickly action needs to be taken after damage occurs.
Type - Is it from water, soot or a combination of the two? What initial steps you should take in each case?
Priority - Valuable and irreplaceable documents should be saved first. Which documents belong in the "must save" category?
Speed - Depending on temperature and humidity, mold and mildew will occur in less than 48 hours. Ideally, documents should be frozen within 10 hours. Freeze drying minimizes the size of ice particles in paper.
If the proper measures are taken, mud, dirt and soot can be lifted from the surface of the paper, making cleaning less time consuming. Rebinding of books may not even be necessary.
Advantages
Paper is frozen at -10° F
Ice crystals vaporize without melting
Stops growth of mold and mildew
Less cleaning time
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