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As we often say at FP Property Restoration, water is the natural enemy of homes and businesses. Timber frame buildings are especially vulnerable to warping, rotting, mold, and extensive structural damage. But for business owners with warehouses or other metal frame structures, the absence of timber doesn’t make your building any safer. In fact, water damage in the workplace carries additional challenges that homeowners don’t normally face.
Keeping your employees safe in the event of water damage demonstrates your responsibility of care. But you also have expensive equipment, functional operating hours, and complicated electrical systems to consider. Health and safety risks pose an additional threat to your commercial liability, making rapid water damage restoration a top priority for business owners.
Cleaning up after water damage is hard no matter who you are, but business owners face unique challenges. Here’s what you can expect after a flood, fire, storm, or burst pipe in your workplace.
Most Common Health & Safety Concerns for Business Owners After Water Damage
If you’ve experienced recent water damage in your commercial property, don’t hesitate to call FP Restoration at (888) 408-2335 today!
Structural Damages & Unsafe Water
Commercial buildings come in all shapes, sizes, and materials, from multi-family properties to 10,000 sq. ft. warehouses. While suitable for industrial purposes, metal-framed buildings aren’t necessarily advantageous when facing water damage. In fact, many commercial structures face the same risks as residential properties when excess water creeps in.
For starters, flooding can shift foundations or cause serious cracks in your slab. Flooding and other sources of low-lying water can also stir up industrial lubricants, oils, and chemicals in the workplace, causing a serious hazard for humans and equipment.
Generally, there are three categories of flood water:
Category 1: Clean Water - This kind of water doesn’t pose an immediate or increased threat.
Category 2: Gray Water - Contaminated water that could result in illness during exposure.
Category 3: Black Water - Extremely contaminated & hazardous water containing sewage, chemicals, or other harmful substances.
Depending on the chemicals, additives, and lubricants you rely on in your line of work, even a few inches of flooding could quickly spiral into a full-blown environmental emergency. Category 3 Black Water requires specialized equipment and expert understanding to remediate, and will absolutely shut a workplace down until a trusted water damage restoration company has time to remove standing water and sanitize the building.
Damage to Valuable Equipment
As a business owner who relies on heavy equipment, your centrifugal machinery and material handling vehicles are always on your mind. In your offices, sensitive computers, hard drives, and other specialized electronics can only tolerate so much moisture. But damaged equipment also poses a health and safety threat to you and your employees. Furthermore, a failure to provide a safe working environment may incur the wrath of OSHA.
Even something as small as a roof leak can cause a serious disruption in your workplace. Slip and fall accidents are par for the course after water damage. Drips may start out small and worsen rapidly, compromising the operational safety of equipment and electronics below.
In industrial buildings especially, exposed wiring in rafters and high-voltage outlets can suffer catastrophic failures from minor increases in moisture and humidity—to say nothing of full-blown floods. Even electrocutions have been known to occur in workplaces hit by water damage.
Personnel Health & Safety
Where there’s water, there will be mold. While molds of all kinds prefer wood, they’re also more than happy to make a home in damp insulation, metal girders, and elsewhere. For multi-family property owners, mold is especially concerning. The larger your building, the more places mold has to hide.
At FP Property Restoration, we use the latest, leading-edge thermal imaging technology to uncover hidden pockets of water damage where mold may also be hiding. Not every kind of mold is dangerous, but since no amount of fungal growth is tolerable in any kind of structure—residential or commercial—you’ll need a trusted and licensed mold remediation company at your side to make your building safe again.
Keep Your Employees & Your Bottom Line Safe with FP Restoration!
Given the myriad places where water damage, mold, and electrical issues can hide in large, commercial buildings, you need a water damage restoration company that’s seen and done it all. At FP Property Restoration, we’re honored to have received the Sedgwick Catastrophe Award for our quick and thorough response to Hurricanes Irma and Michael.
FP Restoration can help your business get back on its feet with contents cleaning for office furniture and fixtures, structural drying, leak detection, and sewage cleanup. All FP Restoration trucks are outfitted with V8-powered, truck-mount extraction units and portable extraction units for simultaneous work above and below ground level.
We have the equipment, knowledge, and experience to repair and restore commercial properties of every size after water damage events. Let us get you back to work by calling (888) 408-2335 today!
Get Dry So You Can Get Back to Business ASAP with FP Restoration!
As an employer, your first duty is to yourself and your employees. But as a business owner, you're also eager to get back to productivity and profitability. At FP Property Restoration, we have the tools, knowledge, and depth of experience to quickly restore safe operation in your workplace or commercial property. Trust the pros and get the job done right the first time around after water damage strikes by calling us at (888) 408-2335 today. Proudly serving communities throughout Florida and nationwide, we can be on-site in an hour or less!