School Construction Project - Stevensville, MT

July 2011 - Dayspring Restoration was contacted on the Friday morning July 3rd, by the superintendent of a commercial construction company, in charge of the construction of a new high school in the Bitterroot Valley. Dayspring was informed that a plumbing supply line located in a mechanical room had burst some time during the previous night flooding approximately 7500 sqft of offices and classroom space. The construction project was over 90% complete, and the affected spaces were fully finished with carpeting and vinyl flooring, sheetrock, trim, counters/cabinets, and lockers. The general contractor and school officials were concerned that the space be properly dried out and documented to ensure that no health or safety issues would result from the loss, as well as required that minimal demolition would be used to help expedite the project due to the schools grand opening date being only a month and a half away.

Dayspring responded to the loss with a mixed crew of 20 IICRC certified water restoration technicians, and construction staff. Once on site, Dayspring immediately deployed multiple extraction units to begin removing standing water, and utilized its experience construction crew to carefully remove wood and vinyl base trim to allow for drying of the affected underlying walls. There were also many affected wall surfaces located between built in class room cabinets and hallway locker assemblies that presented a challenge for proper drying. To avoid the costly expense of removing either of these building assemblies, the Dayspring construction crew carefully removed cabinetry toe kicks and proceeded to drill hundreds of small holes into the wall sheetrock below the cabinetry assembly to allow for air flow and proper drying of the affected material.

While the extraction and light demolition was being conducted the Dayspring large loss staff was busy cordoning off the affected section of the building with temporary sealed plastic walls as a strategy to enhance the effectiveness of the drying equipment. The Drying Technicians also proceeded to moisture map and document the affected space, set up large desiccant dehumidification equipment and a temporary duct system, as well as place smaller drying equipment utilized to deliver the desiccated air to the affected surfaces. All of the initial response and stabilization of the affected building was complete within 12 hours.

The Dayspring Large Loss Superintendent and Lead Technician proceeded to follow up and track the progress of the dry out on a daily basis for the next five days. This process included an extensive array of data collection including direct surface moisture readings as well as air monitoring to track water activity at hundreds of locations within the affected space.

At the conclusion of the drying and restoration process the general contractor and school officials requested an outside evaluation by an independent Certified Industrial Hygienist to ensure that all surfaces were properly dried and that no health and safety concerns remained. This post mitigation verification was successfully passed, the minor amount of reconstruction was performed by the General contractor, and the school was able to open in time for the new school year.