Blog Post
What to Do If Your Septic Tank Or Sewer Drain Backs Up Into Your Home Or Office…
If your septic tank or sewer drain is backed up, it is a problem that is best left to professionals for a whole host of reasons. Here are some guidelines you should follow when dealing with a backed up septic tank…
Why You Should Try to Clean It Yourself
The number one reason that the home or business owner should not attempt to clean up a sewer or drain backup loss is for the simple fact that most average citizens haven't had the immunization series of vaccinations that prevent the spread of bacteria and disease that can occur when cleaning up sewer or drain back ups. Restated: it's simply not a smart decision and it puts you are anyone needlessly at risk of jeopardizing their otherwise healthy lives.
If You MUST Try To Deal With This On Your Own, At A Minimum Do the Following…
- Wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) – Wearing rubber boots, gloves, and a mask will protect yourself from exposure to skin, eye or ingestion exposure
- Wear Proper Footwear – Avoid rushing into the area with footwear that don't have some sort of cleats on them.
- Do Not Use a Shop-Vac – Shop-vacs are Not equipped to work in this type of environment.
- Do Not Use Bleach – Bleach can be effective but most consumers apply it improperly. Moreover, there are much better best-practices.
- Do Not Keep Anything Take Will Go Near a Person's Mouth – Don't attempt to salvage and clean toys.
- Do Not Keep Textiles or Soft Goods – They will never be safe for you again.
Why We Suggest Is That You Call a Professional Restoration Service – A professional service can properly execute a plan that addresses not only health and safety but also has the capability and expertise to properly and completely sanitize and dry out the structure.
What is Salvageable?
- All semi-porous properly cleaned and sanitized structural materials can be dried with proper equipment that creates a drying chamber
- Rugs, carpets, padding are not salvageable under any circumstances
- Drywall and insulation are not salvageable.
- Baseboards can be salvageable but often are not because they can be difficult to be placed back exactly like they were after they were taken off.
What To Do After Calling a Professional…
If possible, turn off the HVAC/fan until the professionals arrive. It simply limits the propagation of the odors associated with such loss types. Opening the windows temporarily is fine; the professionals cleaning up the project will ultimately close them to create a proper drying chamber.
What To Expect Time-wise For The Clean Up
Many restoration companies will tell you it will take only 3 days to dry out the affected area and this can be true if optimal conditions for a properly constructed dry chamber exists, but many times this is simply not possible. The reason is that property owners want access to the area being dried and can cause problems. If someone turns off the equipment that is creating the drying chamber then it's going take longer. If possible it's best to stay away from the affected areas as long as it takes to clean and dry it out. Restoration companies work in 24 hour periods so depending when they start it could result in a customer having the restoration company at their home or business 4-5 calendar days depending when the drying system becomes fully functional after the clean up.
A good restoration company can make sure a septic tank backup is done right and that you're out of pocket damage liability is kept to a minimum. We've helped numerous home and business owners and they and their insurance company always appreciate our surgical approach to restoration!